Country Matters January 2007

I hesitate to write about anything that hints of global warming.  The press and television are full of instances that claim to show we are heading for a catastrophic future.  This may be correct but past natural climatic changes have also had profound effects on the earth's wildlife.

Many of us had roses flowering in the garden at Christmas, we had a few loganberries in January but many spring flowering plants have appeared on time.  Insects that in a cold winter would have died off have been nectaring on these flowers.  The Buff-tailed Bumblebee is now believed to survive the winter as a colony whereas in the past like all the other species the colony would have died and the queen would have hibernated until the spring.  This may seem a small evolutionary step but it will give this species of bumblebee a considerable advantage in the future as it will have workers ready to forage immediately spring arrives.  Some species will be able to adapt and compete but other species will not and may disappear from our countryside.

In our Parish there are many examples of species increasing in numbers or arriving for the first time.  The Banded Demoiselle has increased in numbers along Pods Brook and the Large Red Damselfly arrived in the Parish for the first time last year.  Both these species have been seen on garden ponds which is not their normal habitat. Ken Turner has seen five Little Egrets on Pods Brook recently.  This bird only arrived in the southwest during the late 1980's.  It started breeding and is now common in Essex and has been reported in the Parish for the last four years.  Birds such as the Wren, Goldcrest and Kingfisher have managed to survive the milder winters so their populations have not collapsed as in the past after cold winters.

Other wildlife has yet to learn to cope with the change.  Worms coil up in a small chamber deep in the soil when its cold but not this year as any gardener will know.  They have been active all winter and continued to come to the surface to collect food at night to take down into their burrows.  The hard frosts since Christmas meant that many of these worms on the surface rapidly cooled down and then died.  Their bodies were obvious on pavements, roads and garden paths.

Five species of our butterflies, Peacock, Small Tortoishell, Red Admiral, Comma and Brimstone hibernate as adults.  The first three mentioned have been seen flying this winter and even when hanging up in supposed hibernation they have been moving around.  This can cause serious problems as they depend on stored fat reserves to see them through the winter.  As there are few flowering plants available they are unable to replenish their fat reserves so will probably not survive the winter.

The same applies to bats.  They increase their weight by a third in the autumn and then spend the winter in hibernation or torpor.  Insect food is very scarce in winter so it is important that they keep their body temperature just above freezing to reduce their body metabolism and maintain their fat reserves.  Higher ambient temperatures mean this is very difficult to achieve and many, especially the first year juveniles may not survive.  Over the last few years bats rescued in the spring have been found to have low body weights.

Martyn and Rose Philips, Brunwin Road had a Hedgehog wandering round their garden on several nights in January.  In normal years this is a sign for concern as it means that the hedgehog is running out of its food reserves and has had to wake from hibernation in the hope of finding food.  In a normal winter this is unlikely unless a human intervenes and feeds it.  But this year the worms are active and I'm sure a starving hedgehog would not decline from eating slugs.  Martyn also reported they had Fruit Flies Drosophila sp. in their house.  We have also had Fruit Flies but we blamed our son Francis who spent several days sexing Drosophila species with a binocular microscope on our kitchen table for one of the researchers in his group.  Perhaps our infestation was due to global warming and not his escapees.

We often forget that plants cannot move if the climate changes do not suit them.  There are many trees that are suffering from a range of new fungal diseases and insect pests that are taking advantage of the climatic changes.  This is something we will notice in our gardens, we may be able to grow bananas but some of our native plants may not thrive.

As a nation that has always used the weather as a main topic of conversation we are not going to run out of material for some time to come.

Wildlife Reports for January 2007

Andy Goodey heard two Golden Plover calling over Pods Lane, a Blackcap in song by the Barrack Yard bus shelter and a Woodcock along Dunmow Road.  Alan Spooner New Road, one evening heard a banging noise on the roof of their bungalow.  It was a covey of eight Red legged Partridges that were pecking at the moss on the north side of the roof presumably to get at insects underneath.  They spent the night roosting on the roof in the lee of the wind.

Harold Giles reported tracks of Fallow Deer across the Shalford Road allotments and Mark his son has had considerable problems with Squirrels stripping the leaves off his winter greens this year.

The wet soil, snow and frost have made following wildlife tracks very easy.  Around the outside of our garden fence Fallow and Muntjac tracks are numerous.  The Badgers ignore the fence and go under or through the netting allowing the foxes to follow.  Tracks showed that a near neighbour had a badger holed-up in their garden for a period.  The field by the school had tracks of groups of three to seven Fallow deer crossing it visible most of the winter.  In early January there was a Muntjac track with slots of its fawn nearby, the fawn was very young as its print was only about 15mm long.  Like all youngsters it did not follow close to Mum but was jumping around some distance from its parent.  Muntjacs do not have set seasons for having their young.  I have seen very young fawns in December and January.

Roger Jiggins Tel. 01376 324 311, email r.jiggins@btconnect.com (please put Wildlife as the subject)