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!

Introducing Lancaster

On Friday afternoon I took the opportunity to do a bit of exploring along the Canal and beside the River Lune in Lancaster, to see what was about. Although the walk did not turn up anything especially unusual, it was an excellent opportunity to explore my new ‘Local Patch.’ The canal is a green corridor not just for wildlife but also for students travelling between the Universities and the City Centre.  It flows through sheep-infested hills into the heart of the city, and onward into the Lune.  Mallards graze on its banks and Jackdaws squawk in the ancient oaks which dot its pastured banks.    While I was cycling along it I saw a Sparrowhawk,  pursuing small birds unidentified at hedgerow height and over the water.  A pair of Ravens, unfamiliar birds I tend to associate with places far more remote and weather beaten than this, could also be seen in the distance. Ravens! A ten minute ride from my new home!

The River Lune runs through Lancaster, and separates it from its seaside neighbour Morecambe.  Negotiating the awkward Lancaster one way system on my bike, I eventually made it to the Lune near the large metal supports of the pedestrian Millenium Bridge, and turned left, following the riverside path past construction sites, and some of Lancaster’s decaying industrial heritage, the river front lined for the first half mile or so with derelict factories. As I pass under an arched railway bridge, the city passed behind me and I was in the wild. A fence separated me from fields in which cows and horses grazed.  The sky was grey and drizzle fell intermittently, which negated any possibility of seeing any butterflies or dragonflies about, but there were plenty of gulls on the bank of the Lune, as well as the occasional handsome Cormorant drying his wings, or a fishing Grey Heron.

I followed the path beside the muddy tidal river to Freemans’ Pools, a patch of land managed by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust for the benefit of wildlife, and took the opportunity to sit by the river for a while.  There were cormorants fishing, curlews probing in the mud, and Black-headed and Lesser Black Backed Gulls, fishing actively in the water or roosting beside it. A couple of noisy skeins of geese flew over my head, presumably transiting between some farmers field in which they graze, or mudflats lost under rising tide, and their roosting site. Their harsh calls suggested they were probably Greylags. They flew in loose V formations at height and circled about above me before flying on in the direction of Lancaster and the Universities.   At the time it was being used apparently by no more than a few gulls and a pair of Mute Swans. Access directly onto the reserve was not possible but I was able to get a good view from the fence. With winter approaching it seemed likely that these ponds would soon be well used by wintering wildfowl.  The footpath continued toward Aldcliffe and I followed it, passing a few arable fields, before entering a patch of farmland, which the path crossed. Many of the fields had been flooded and the sheep stood on islands they shared with Lapwings, Curlew and Black Headed Gulls, while Mallards swam about between them.  The floodwaters had also taken over the main bridleway, but fortunately a raised path on top of a muddy bank ran parallel to it, and I did not have to face the awkward choice between turning back and riding my bike through deep water.

I saw a couple of swallows, surely among the last of the year here, and a charm of Goldfinch flew over, chirping. Eventually I reached the main road at the Village of Aldcliffe, up a steep slope. I looked around at the tree-lined hills. The sun was beginning to set and had found a gap between the clouds, the evening light illuminating the hillsides, and the leaves which, around here, are already beginning to turn gold, brown and red, and I thought that I could get into local birding here.

The same evening I headed down to Bolton to listen to a couple of Punk bands in a bar down there, before going on to Manchester and visiting Martin Mere- more on that to follow- but on the way I had another moment. Driving in the near-darkness along one of the small B-roads, I was lucky enough to see a handsome, attractively mottled and downy-looking Tawny Owl fly through my view.

Yes. This place will be good for birding.

Leighton Moss

Looking at the grey sky, I am afraid I failed to rise with the lark this morning and get to the RSPB’s reserve at Leighton Moss as the Sun came up, but I did make my way to my new local big RSPB reserve this afternoon.  I arrived under the bluest sky I have seen since I arrived in the North West. The leaves on the trees up here have already started turning, leaving me feeling like I had lost a couple of weeks off the end of Summer somewhere on the M6, and despite some sunshine yesterday, it has rained continuously since the day after I arrived, albeit with rainbows.

The downpours which have afflicted the North of England in recent weeks will not have gone unnoticed given all the flood warnings. Here in Lancaster I am fine, it has rained incessantly bar two days since my arrival but when I reached Leighton Moss I was a little disappointed to find that I was only able to view half of the reserve as some of the paths had become flooded. I left the visitors centre and took the opportunity to glance at the feeding station which sits outside it. There was a large amount of Passerine activity, with chaffinches and greenfinches alongside a less familiar Marsh Tit and a number of scruffy juvenile Bullfinches. One young male Bullfinch appeared to be gaining his distinctive and instantly recognisable salmon-pink breast in awkward patches. Badger-striped coal tits were here in number, and Mallards, these ones now well past their ‘eclipse’ and regaining their adult plumage, pottered about on the ground picking up the dropped seed from the feeders.

Coal Tit at the Feeding Station.

Scruffy young bullfinch, a stark contrast with the very smart adults.

After a few attempts to photograph some of the passerines, a task made all the more difficult by the positioning of the feeders under a thick woodland canopy, I headed on to the first hide,  called Lillian’s Hide, and from it, a large structure with a wide bay window affording good views across the lake, and was able to get a feel for the reserve. I was there with few expectations, and had been expecting to find a “moss,” that is, a Sphagnum bog, of the type so threatened by peat extraction, and was surprised to find a lowland wetland of much more familiar character.  Leighton Moss is described as the largest reed bed in the North West, and is a combination of Phragmites reed-swamp with scattered clumps of Typha, with its thick dark seed heads, popularly called Bullrush, and open water, fringed by (very) wet woodland, with wooded hill slopes climbing away. It lies in or close to the Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the elegantly curvaceous landscape is certainly beautiful. I was surprised to see, given the autumnal character of the last few days, that there were still dragonflies on the wing. Migrant Hawkers patrolled above the reeds. Some of the people in the hide were discussing Otters which had apparently been seen the same morning. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so persistent with that snooze button.   Outside were no more than the usual suspects-coots, some scruffy Tufted Ducks, the males now moulting out of their eclipse plumage, brown and patchy with white flanks, a moorhen or two, and the obligatory mallards. I stayed to enjoy the landscape for a bit, and watch a late Red Admiral butterfly fluttering about,  but the lack of interesting birds drove me on.

RSPB Leighton Moss.

I walked along the path toward the next hide, called the Public Hide, presumably because it sits on a public footpath to Leighton Hall, passing on the way a patch of open grass and a view of the reserve. The reed swamp certainly looked expansive. I continued through a Carr woodland rich in bird calls, and Goldcrests, to the main path through the reedbeds to the hide. I found myself wading uncomfortably through water several centimetres deep, and very cold, but stuck to the path and persevered.   A sign advertised grit trays supposedly frequented by the UK’s most Northerly population of Bearded Tits, but none of these charismatic denizens of thick reed beds were out today. Another advertised Bitterns, but only a beautiful family of mute swans, dabbling about in the sunshine, were to be seen in the patch of open water I looked out upon. Above me a buzzard circled. I might have missed it but for the friendly couple with pleasant local accents who pointed it out, along with the distinct absence of bearded tits, which they suggested might be in Africa. I replied that they might equally be at Purfleet. No bearded tits, but I took a moment to enjoy the sight of a large bird of prey circling on thermals above the beautiful Lancashire countryside.

Mute Swans near the Public Hide.

The view from the public hide was not much better than the first, again with Mute Swans, Mallards, Coots and Tufties. Not fancying further wading along the flooded paths, it was with a sense of mild disappointment that I made the return trudge through the freezing water.  As I re-entered the Carr woodland I was in for a pleasant surprise. A flock of small birds was moving though, paying particular attention to one Elder bush. This was one of the big gangs of mixed passerines foraging together and taking advantage of safety in numbers through the Autumn and Winter.  They are said to tolerate each other for this reason-while each species has a subtly different diet to the others. Goldcrests foraged frenetically among the yellowing leaves, and long tailed tits contact-called to each other. Blue tits and coal tits hung upside down from the tips of branches, and Treecreepers wound their way up the stems.  Great tits paused before disappearing into the depths of the vegetation, and smart Chaffinches and Greenfinches perched boldly and openly on the lower branches.   As I stood enjoying the spectacle of all these birds around me, yet more species piled in. A very handsome, boldly striped male Siskin appeared before disappearing among the elders’ leaves. A bird I enthusiastically called as a Garden Warbler turned out to be a female Blackcap.  I am certain I have never seen a fraction of this number of goldcrests in one place before, even in sheltered southern woodlands on snowy days.  A Marsh tit was also briefly visible. An older couple also stood enjoying what the RSPB might describe as a “moment,” and they told me they had seen a Willow Warbler in the flock as well.  We were surrounded by tiny passerines. In all the flock seemed to contain no less than 11 species, including the ten I had seen and the friendly couple’s Willow Warbler.  A Robin appeared and made angry noises toward the other passerines, and as soon as the show had begun, it was over, the distinct shapes of two Long-tailed Tits were briefly silhouetted against the sky through a gap in the branches appeared as stragglers, as the flock moved on to new bushes deeper in the woods and further from the path.  I don’t know whether the chirpy but highly territorial Robin had actually chased the whole flock away, but he seemed content to have his bush to himself again.

Very nervous coot.

I continued my return journey to Lillian’s hide.  There were a few Siskins feeding on the Birch which hangs over the hide. Inside the view was a little more interesting than before, and I hung on for a while in the hope of seeing some otter action. None was forthcoming, but a handsome, and very well camouflaged Snipe offered a rare photo opportunity, as it probed about in the  mud where some of the reeds had been cut, in search of invertebrate prey.  A very handsome Grey Heron stood silently and solemnly on one of the islands, eventually tucking his head away under one wing and roosting there. A single Little Egret flew over. I was surprised to see the small white heron so far north just a few decades after its rapid invasion of the country, I thought of them as a Southern thing.  A Gadwall, a male smart in his fresh breeding plumage, swam by, allowing me to add another water fowl to my list. As I enjoyed the view, I saw a number of Mallards take off in the back of my view. The coots instantly fell silent. One moment ago they had been splashing about, calling, bickering with each other, and diving for weeds. Now they swam quickly, some of them running on the water, onto the island, where they stood tensely among the reeds staring fixedly across the water. I followed their gaze. A Marsh Harrier was quartering over distant reeds, wings raised in a shallow V, with gold around her face and the leading edges of her wings. She settled into a bush across the water, where she remained as long as I did. I waited a while, fruitlessly, in the hope of meeting my first English otter, and eventually the tension among the coots subsided and some of the bolder ones ventured back into the water, still clearly aware of the deadly predator on the other side of the water. 

Very handsome and obliging Snipe.

I took a walk back to the RSPB visitors centre for a swift cup of coffee, and then took another look at the feeders.  I could hear the low, throaty bellowing of Red Deer stags in the distance, an enthralling and unfamiliar sound to this Southerner.  A handsome cock Pheasant strutted up and down beneath them. A brown passerine on one of the feeders was revealed to be a Redpoll, another less familiar species. Its body was brown and heavily streaked, with a small red cap on its forehead.   Passerine numbers were down on this morning, perhaps the fading light, and failing weather, it had begun spitting again, had seen some of them off to roost. I watched the antics of some of the remaining birds for a while, there was still a Marsh tit about, before I decided to jump in the car and try to reach the other end of the reserve. The RSPB land straddles a railway line, and to reach the other side I had to drive up in the direction of Silverdale and over a level crossing, then take a right turn after crossing a bridge. Inevitably, I got completely lost and spent several minutes trying to find the place. When I did, and I never got as far as the two Salt marsh hides, which overlook the edges of Morecambe Bay, I discovered Leighton Moss had one more trick up its sleeve to really impress me.

Pheasant at the feeding station.

I drove up the gravel track, having found it eventually, and stopped behind another driver who was looking up at the starlings, which had gathered in some number on the telephone wires which hung between two poles each side of the road, framing a small railway bridge and the sunset behind them. Every couple of minutes a small group of Starlings would arrive from somewhere and jostle for position with the birds which had already arrived. The gentleman in the other car passed me and remarked he was off to get his camera, the starlings had arrived. He departed down the road. Not long after he left, a larger flock appeared, and, as if at a signal, they combined with the flock on the wires and ascended into the sky. At first a disorganised mass of birds, a shape moving low over the reeds appeared to cause them to transform. All at once the edges of the flock became sharply defined, each bird apparently moving as part of some combined whole. They moved quickly, sharply, and as one dived into the reeds. A few moments later the chattering started, and the dark shape rose up and away headed for the hills. It was a fat dark shape, a ball of muscle, a clenched fist of a bird, between pointed wings. I recorded it as a male Peregrine, as it slipped out of site. I waited a few moments listening to the chattering in the reeds. A few pied wagtails flew low over the tops of the reeds as Cormorants passed inland over my head, and a fine rain began to fall as the light continued to fade, the sunset burning a deep yellow-orange, a gap in the cloud fringing the horizon. Lapwings flew down off the slopes, perhaps from further inland, in a flock, toward some protected saltmarsh roosting site. The gentleman with the other car returned with his camera, and was a little disappointed to find himself with only a noisy reed bed to point it at.  A distance away a Marsh Harrier put up small flocks of starlings, rising out of the reeds like puffs of smoke. We both looked at it through the binoculars and enjoyed the presence of a splendid raptor.   The next predator to appear, the starlings saw before we did. First, the noisy chattering of the birds stopped, and then, with a roar like the ocean, like waves breaking on a shingle beach, the starlings in the reeds took flight. The murmuration twisted, a single dark shape composed of what must be hundreds of birds, above the reed bed. Assigning a number of birds to them would have been impossible.  The predator, a juvenile Sparrowhawk which only briefly passed through our field of view, continued on its way and must have cleared the area quite quickly, as the starlings dived down into the reeds in a single column. They fell silent but the sound of the birds’ wings in unison was probably the most memorable feature of the spectacle.  Eventually the chattering resumed, and we watched the sky fill not with dense flocks of starlings but a more diffuse flock of hirundines, shortly, surely, to be on their way back to Africa in pursuit of bugs and summer.  Loosing the light, I headed home, with the word "murmuration" and the sound of hundreds of starling wings in my ears.

Murmuration.

Heybridge Basin

Saturday afternoon took me and my good friend Becky up to Heybridge Basin near Maldon, in the car to hone my driving skills. It lies where a canal meets the River Blackwater, effectively the estuary of the river Chelmer in North Essex.  We parked up in the free, council run car park on a grey afternoon, and wandered down a short length of canal to the village which stands beside the ‘basin,’ a sort of parking area and maintenance yard for canal boats. There were a number of Common Terns fishing around the spot where the fresh water of the canal passes through lock gates into the Blackwater.  A few black-headed gulls were there too, more powerful birds than the terns in many ways, which kept out of their way. The Black-headed gulls did not compete with the Terns in the grace and style stakes though, the forked tailed, almost angelic “sea swallows” made the larids look dumpy and inelegant. That said, the last time Bexx and I had met Terns, on a sunny day in Northumberland almost exactly a year previously,  they had attacked us. We were in the Farne Islands, and on one of the islands they just dive bombed any visitor stepping withing the colony, making contact with their beaks! Terns look pointy at the best of times. When they're going for the top of your head they are very pointy indeed. Today, however, they just allowed us to stand impressed by grace and fishing prowess. 

Beautiful Common Tern.

The salt marsh which borders the estuary separating Hebridge from the historic town of Maldon was alive, the vegetation was green and though of course the wintering birds are long gone, and the Autumn passage migrants yet (but soon) to arrive in any numbers, the peeping calls of Oystercatchers regularly broke through, and, as we walked the sound of Gulls became louder. A lone Little Egret shook his feet in the shallow, muddy water, and moved with elegant high-stepping motion across the mud. He seemed to dislike having a camera pointed at him and was soon on the wing, steadily, almost casually, making his exit from view across the saltmarsh. 

Little Egret at Heybridge

A number of old sand or gravel pits near Heybridge, between the canal and the Blackwater, have been turned over to nature, and black headed gulls, apparently in their hundreds, have taken to nesting on the small, gravelly islands. Tufted Ducks were about, some of the males still in their striking black and white but some turning over into their duller eclipse plumage, as were some of the drake mallards which were about too. A few swallows were hunting insects, sweeping around near the waters surface and over its grassy margins, never appearing to cross the Blackwater.  A cormorant flew overhead, straight and true, a jet-black adult.  There were a few Whitethroats and Acrocephalus spp. warblers singing in the bushes and lakeside vegetation, but passerine activity was a little disappointing, a couple of greenfinches flew over our heads. I’d seen a cuckoo there a couple of years ago, with my father who always seems to find cuckoos, but there wasn’t one about today. This breeze probably wasn’t helping, and nor was the cold. 

View of the River Blackwater from Heybridge.

Maldon’s sea front is dominated by bright building fronts, an old church and the wide Marine Park, the fountains of which could be seen from across the river. A stretch of tidal river, lined with lush saltmarshes, separates it from Heybridge. Here a number of shelducks filter-fed in the mud, and a couple more of these lovely, big white and black ducks flew over. Shelducks congregate in Northern Germany to moult, evidently these birds had yet to leave, and retained their smart breeding plumage, which includes an iridescent green head and red bill, and a chestnut band around their chests, in both sexes.  These handsome birds specialise in life around river estuaries, and are common in places like this but scarce in other habitats, some wintering on gravel pits, but rarely far from the coast.

Maldon

Maldon is a pretty town, when viewed from back here, and today there was some live music coming out of it, apparently from one of the towns old pubs.  Its sea front is dominated by bright building fronts, an old church and the wide Marine Park, the fountains of which could be seen from across the river. As the sky began spitting rain on us, I wondered if a boat over the river would be a good plan.  We walked on, past several cute, small rabbits, and reached a bank of spectacular, and very photogenic wild flowers.  These bordered some new build housing, presumably a backwater of the one-horse town of Heybridge.  Perhaps they had been put down as a seed mix as mitigation for the loss of habitat resultant from the building. Poppies nodded in the wind, beside camomile and some of the most brilliantly electric blue cornflowers I have ever seen. The flowers were popular with bees, and I wondered if more invertebrate fauna might be forthcoming were the weather a little less grey, and becoming colder. 

A wildflower mix. Instant wildlife for developers.

Luckily the rain continued to hold off as we walked back up the canal to the free car park which stands by it. We passed the narrowboats on the canal, which looked far more charming than the millionaires’ motor yachts which sat alongside more elegant sailing craft in the Basin itself. Although the two, appropriately nautically-themed pubs looked appealing for a glass of branded cola and a warm up, we had a dinner invitation in Witham to take up. Oh yeah, because I can drive now. Which is win. 

Black Headed Gull at Heybridge Basin. These breed in substantial numbers on the old gravel pits.