Continued. A retrospective through my lockdown walks.

Stoney Wood and Environs Thursday 2nd April 2020

A walk was had of a clear and bright but somewhat blustery afternoon, up through Stoney Wood, where there were several large bumblebees on the catkins, and then taking the second footpath off the hairpin bend on the Dale. Stoney Wood is a favourite local spot, and a community woodland on the site of an old quarry. There were no new migrant birds, somewhat to our surprise, but there were Chiffchaffs, Blue and Great Tits, and chaffinches, all singing. 

We then wandered onto the shorter of the two footpaths across the Middle Peak Quarry, through a tunnelled section, and then picked up the road toward Carsington. Another footpath on our left brought us back through Middle Peak quarry. A few walkers were out and about but humans remained somewhat scarce. Blackthorn, Celandine, and huge mats of some herbaceous plant with white flowers clung to the quarry walls. 

Birds seen: Lesser Black Backed Gull, Black Headed Gull, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-Tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Wren, Blackbird, Dunnock, Pied Wagtail, Goldfinch. 

Bolehill, Cromford Canal, Black Rocks, Cromford Moor.   Friday 3rd April

A Longer circular walk was had this afternoon, taking the now familiar trail up from Wirksworth, past the parked historic trains, up the hill into Bolehill, through the village, along the farm track and down a network of footpaths through a pastoral landscape of spring lambs and shy cattle. I spent a little time with a beautiful, one eyed black cat, who was very friendly and affectionate. I rather wanted to bring him home. A Skylark sang. I reached the canal and looked for waterfowl, but found it all surprisingly poor, both on the canal and the derwent. Unusual. I then struck up the steep part of the high peak trail, and made my return via Black Rocks, and part of Cromford Moor, which hosts a fragment of moorland vegetation but is largely disappearing under conifer plantation. 

The view from the Cromford Moor trig point did not disappoint and I stopped for an obligatory selfie up there. as the sun broke out. The view took in part of Carsington Water in one direction, with the White Peak beyond, and the flat land toward Derby in the other. Cromford Moor was a surprising beauty, and something of a revelation and a discovery, but a few hundred metres from my home.

Birds Seen: Mallard, Pheasant, Little Grebe, Moorhen, Buzzard, Woodpigeon, Jay, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Raven, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Skylark, Long-Tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Wren, Treecreeper, Blackbird, Fieldfare, Redwing, Song Thrush, Robin, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail, Chaffinch, Goldfinch 

Cromford Moor

Part of the view from Cromford Moor Trig.

Descent via Bolehill, with Micropigs. 

Rail Transport through the 80s. 

Middleton Moor, High Peak Trail, Black Rocks and Bolehill.   4th April 2020

Another lockdown walk took me to Middleton Moor via Stoney Wood and the vastness of the Middle Peak Quarry, passing around abandoned or near abandoned farm buildings and a large stand of gorse. Middleton Moor, seldom explored by me, is something of a misnomer. On the limestone, it consisted largely of highly improved grassland, and held a few Meadow Pipits, and Skylarks sang from on high. 

Further down the High Peak Trail a Peregrine circled overhead, and Natty and small human joined me at the National Stone Centre. We climbed the steep footpath up Black Rocks to the Cromford Moor Trig Point I'd visited alone the previous day. The view was still good. I suspect it will take a while to get old. 

We walked back through the Shetland Ponies and spring Lambs near Bolehill. 

Birds: Pheasant, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Kestrel, Peregrine, Jay, Magpie, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Skylark, Chiffchaff, Wren, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Robin, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Goldfinch. 



Home. 5th April 2020

On a day spent mainly at home, Goldfinches were busy in the bushes, and were house sparrows. Black Headed Gulls flew over and a Peacock Butterfly was in the garden. An afternoon stroll about town added Greenfinch to the Lockdown List, and we also saw a Bombus lapidarius. A Buzzard was in flight over the town and the first Herb Robert was in flower. 

Part of Middleton  Moor. 

Some thoughts on the Badger Cull.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Badger cull. It is not supported by scientific evidence, and even if it were, it would only be in support of a little cost cutting for the dairy industry, which produces unnecessary luxury products for mass consumption. Farmers and their allies claim that the wholesale slaughter with rifles of one of our best loved wild animals will reduce the incidence of TB in cattle by a mere 16%, and will not reduce the incidence of infertility, mastitis, exhaustion, foot problems, being male, or any of the other factors which cause vast numbers of Dairy cows to be slaughtered and discarded on a daily basis. Indeed, the incidence of mastitis, a crippling disease of cows’ udders caused by industrial milking practices, and preventable simply by milking the cows slightly less often, makes any claim that dairy farmers feel some form of concern for their animals welfare  seem rather absurd.

The Tories do a good line in cutting their support for industry, and if the subsidies paid to dairy farmers were indeed of any concern to them, I have no doubt our ruling party would treat the farmers in an even handed way, in accordance with the way they have treated industries in the past which have cost them too much. They would simply cut the subsidies and abandon the industry, and its employees to their fate, like the miners, the steel workers or the railway conductors.  Even the cost of Bovine TB to central government and the taxpayer does not add up to a coherent, pro-cull argument, especially as they receive compensation when their cows come down with any number of diseases, and 16% of those with bovine TB is a miniscule fraction of the current dead cow kitty.  No, expense makes no argument for the culling of badgers.

Scientific evidence on the subject has been somewhat dubious, but the Krebs trial revealed culling badgers as a strategy to reduce the incidence of bovine TB is likely to be extremely problematic and may indeed lead to an increase in bTB as the badgers flee their home ranges, taking the disease with them.   Science makes no argument for the culling of badgers.

The only conceivable reason I can think of that one might support the badger cull is straightforward, but strikes me as a little daft. It is the will of the dairy farmers and dairy farmers are cute.  We see them on adverts, with their cloth caps and gruff, rural accents, their purported love of good beer, their charming cloth caps and cheque shirts, their eye smiles and grass chewing. They are in our children’s books, helping deliver baby lambs and growing turnips, standing over a spade with a charming smile and a piece of grass hanging out of their mouths. Their supposed heroism defined in wartime “dig for victory” posters, again with the spade, bright eyes turned to the sky. Farming is part of our history and our culture, and townies have formed quite a sentimental attachment to their image of the “poor beleaguered British farmer.”  Walking through his field in the dawn light, he cuts a romantic figure, lonely, badly dressed, out there in the elements.  He is, townies like to image, a pleasant character, who cares for his animals and frequents the local pub, where he sits with his dog by the fireplace, keeping the real ale industry alive.   Ignorant of the countryside, the townies want to do what he says for sentimental reasons.  His care for his livestock is embodied by mastitis and bovine TB and cramped conditions, in which malformed cows drag their udders along the concrete floor of their sheds.  He has sprayed our wild flower meadows and replanted them with imported rye grass for no reason other than rye grass can be turned into milk quicker, and because the government gave him taxpayers money to do so.  Farming rakes in public money from central government and the EU, and the ‘beleaguered’ farmer is laughing all the way to the bank with his dead badger, cloth cap and massive subsidy, even as the injured coal miner has to reapply for his disability living allowance.  

The cuteness of the dairy farmer is the only explanation of why we would consider doing something like this for him. Imagine if the oil industry asked us to cull Puffins because they give them a bad image when they end up covered in oil?  Or whales because there is a theoretical risk of ship collision? They would be ridiculed, and rightly so, although our society is far more dependent on oil than it is on milk.  Imagine if the glass making industry called for a cull on Birds of Prey because they sometimes damage windows on collision with them? Or the forestry industry culled blue tits because of some hitherto unknown side effect of their tree-nesting habits? That’d be ridiculous, because none of these industries have as cute a figurehead as the dairy industry does.

Townies need to wake up to the reality of the countryside and abandon their preconceptions, our wildlife is at stake!

Hornchurch Country Park and the Ingrebourne Valley

On Tuesday afternoon, my good friend Tom and I made a trip down to the green part of the Ingrebourne Valley, stretching from Upminster Bridge, and accessed by the Hornchurch AFC football stadium, down almost as far as Rainham, where our local river flows into the Thames estuary. We had chosen a bright sunny day and there were plenty of smart Banded Demoiselles about. These stunning insects, which have a bright, metallic lustre about their bodies, and, in the male, deep blue bands on their clear wings, are specialists in these fast flowing streams.   Swifts and house martins were overhead, circling in the clear blue sky. House Martins, it is now understood, spend a lot of their time feeding at such altitudes to be outside of our visual range, and these were climbing higher, ascending to height and disappearing from view.

We heard the first cuckoo of the day not long after joining the Ingrebourne valley, and outside of Hornchurch Country park “proper.” Cuckoos populations are, like those of many long range migrant birds and farmland specialists, are declining, and are something of a conservation priority. That was far from apparent in the Ingrebourne Valley. A short while later one of these elusive birds flew overhead.  The presence of relatively scarce and declining farmland birds was remarkable that day, but more of those to come.

Banded Demoiselle at the Ingrebourne Valley

Passing the inevitable flocks of Carrion Crow, Woodpigeon and Feral Pigeon, we wandered along the river, glancing down into it in the hope of catching sight of one of the fabled Barbel, large fish which spend their lives fighting against the strong current, but these, unfortunately, proved elusive.  Orange tip and Small White butterflies were on the wing, and there were chaffinches and robins singing. Arriving at the lookout point over the Ingrebourne valley,  a little charm of goldfinches flew over us. A few benches here provide excellent views over an area where the Ingrebourne has been allowed to widen and form reed beds, with green phragmites spikes rising out of the brown remnants of last year’s growth, and spread over flat areas of mud and shallow water.  To our surprise a migratory wader, somewhat scarce in the South East, was feeding in the shallows. It was a small plover, and the bright yellow eye ring which gave it away as a little ringed plover was clearly apparent. It was happy to pose for a couple of ID able photos. We sat for a while and admired the view, a juvenile Grey Heron, a typical denizen of wetlands all over Europe, lazily flew past, and a few moments later, a Little Egret flew off in the same direction.  There was a mute swan further upriver, and a small flock of mallards also contained a pair of Gadwall.  A couple of Lapwing, another bird not so common in the summer months around here arrived and began their display of aerial agility, whistling and rocking from side to side in flight flashing their bright white undersides and metallic green topsides. We watched the display with interest, what purpose it served was not clear, the affirmation of a pair bond, or perhaps to distract some unseen predator. It distracted us, and we watched the birds for a while until they moved on to another part of the river.

View from the viewpoint over the marshes.

Little Ringed Plover

We continued our walk to where second world war pill boxes, heavily armed positions built for a frantic, last ditch defence of Hornchurch Airfield in the event of a Nazi invasion, stood looking over the marsh.  Here RAF personnel would have maintained a vigil, even as the bombs fell on the airfield they were charged with protecting.      We went inside one of the concrete structures, and despite litter and graffiti it retained an eerie sense of history. In front of the pill box lay extensive marshes, beds of phragmites, but the view of these was now obscured by growing brambles.  Behind it, beside the asphalt path, stood a few Hawthorns, and a whitethroat sang from the upper branches of one of these.  The May Blossom has now begun to fade, but summer wildflowers were abundant and a Small Heath butterfly fluttered between them. This little brown Satyrid butterfly is often a species of very old stretches of grassland and I believe this was my first one at Hornchurch Country Park. 

One of the wartime pill boxes at Hornchurch Country Park. Everything looks a bit more evocative in black and white.

As the path snaked around towards Albyn’s Farm Lake, we heard another cuckoo singing in the trees. Chiffchaffs and great tits also sang, and we caught site of a bird which might have been a blackcap. The lake itself revealed little of interest so we proceeded towards Ingrebourne hill, a huge, grassed over pile of rubbish now designated as a nature reserve. We passed a field which was alive with wildflowers, and saw a Kestrel mobbed and harassed by a whole flock of starlings, behaviour which, of course, they abandoned as soon as I got my camera out. The starlings assembled on gates and fences, clearing the path as we passed, returning to it once it was behind us. 

Meadow Habitat at Ingrebourne Hill

It was here we got another pleasant surprise. There are Skylarks here, we must have seen ten or so individuals. One sang from a fence upright and allowed us close enough to take photos. It was a handsome, streaky brown bird, about the size of a starling, with a small but obvious crest on its head. Another two hung in the sky, hovering, on their song flights. Loud, trilling and whistling skylark techno filled the air. Birds appeared out of the grass as we approached and we stuck to the path for fear of disturbing, or stepping on, any of the nests on the ground.    Skylarks, and their song once almost ubiquitous in the English countryside are another of these species whose populations are now in virtual freefall. Changing, more intensified farming practices, and earlier harvests are destroying their nests, although they show signs of benefiting from Agricultural Stewardship Schemes.  Joe Public and his dogs are also something of a menace, as the animals, left off leads to run in the grass, will often sniff out and devour the eggs and chicks of skylarks, while their owners are all too often oblivious. Plenty of dogs and their humans use Ingrebourne hill, although some of the neighbouring fields flourish with wild vegetation and have access restricted by wire fences.   Public access has its drawbacks from a conservation point of view.

Very vocal, and confiding, Skylark at Ingrebourne Hill.

We walked back the way we came, and saw a Red Fox at the bottom of ingrebourne hill, disappearing into the scrub. Making our way back we paused at Albyns Farm Lake to watch several flotillas of Canada Geese and their Goslings, each family with chicks of a slightly different size.  Their parents lowered their heads and hissed each time one of the solitary, non-breeding adults came close.  A great crested grebe hung about close to the island in the middle, and there were a few coots, moorhens and Tufted Ducks about. Wildfowl scattered as a couple of idiots encouraged their hounds to take a swim in the water, but thankfully the dogs seemed uninterested in any of the young birds. They do stir up the water and disturb the wildlife, why one would allow a predator like that to swim in a lake full of young birds is beyond me, but mercifully no harm seemed to be done, this time.

Canada Geese and Goslings on Albyn's Farm Lake.

As we passed the viewpoint again there was one more treat in store for us, as the hawk like shape of a cuckoo flew past us, giving us both good views. It is a sleek, slender grey bird, reminiscent of a Sparrowhawk with a long tail. The head is held slightly raised in flight, giving the body a curious shape, somewhat reminiscent of a banana.  They must be breeding here, parasitizing the nests perhaps of Dunnocks or Reed Warblers, both of which are found here, I assume, as they would be unlikely to be here in such numbers on passage.  I tend to think of the Cuckoo as a relatively scarce bird, worthy of a summer visit to Heybridge Basin or Lakenheath Fen to see, but here they were, at least three separate birds, in a strip of country bordered by suburban metropolitan Essex in all directions.  This unique strip of land deserves its SSSI and local nature reserve designation, and seems, almost every time, to host unexpected wildlife. Below is a rather gorgeous hairy caterpillar we found on the grass near Albyn's farm, any ideas?

Beautiful, but as yet unidentified caterpillar.