I will not repeat all the effects our warmer winters are having on our wildlife.  I sit writing this in bright sunshine after several days with a daytime temperature up to 14C and frosts at night down to -4C.  We had two roses that opened in the garden for Christmas and had three Red Admiral butterflies in pristine condition flying in January.  Every garden has a story to tell of flowers out when they should not be and in our vegetable garden the strawberry plants have flowers and fruit, one fruit was over 25mm (1ins) long.  In the sixties we had a spell of over 3 months one winter when the temperatures rarely climbed above freezing.  We lifted sugar beet late afternoon and evening when the frost was hardening the ground but then had to stop as the ground quickly froze it too hard to lift the beet.  I can remember drinking copious quantities of home made wine to keep the blood flowing.  Even that year pales with my maternal grandmothers remembrances as a child when she actually skated on the Thames and the cooked chestnut sellers had their braziers on the ice.  Personally I prefer today's winter to those nostalgic days when Rayne was actually cut off by snow drifts from Braintree and the Dunmow road took a week to clear after the storms abated.

In December I reported the supposed dead stoat found along Pods Lane.  I eventually looked at the corpse but the maggots had nearly finished their work.  It was very large and certainly not a stoat.  The fur had a dark almost black outer colouration and the under fur was light coloured.  One could still make out distinctive white markings on the muzzle.  This was Polecat or a ferrety Polecat, the latter is a cross between the Polecat and a ferret.  It is the muzzle markings that separate them or DNA evidence.  The Mammal Society survey up to 2006 showed several records of ferrety Polecats in East Anglia and I was told that since then a true Polecat was identified but I have not found anybody to corroborate this.  I do not think the Mammal Society would welcome the Pods Lane specimen sent to it for analysis and identification.  Robert Bucknall from Saling has another individual in his deep freeze so I hope to send this to them.

We have at least one Stoat in our garden and several people have had sightings in the area.  They are one of the most exiting of our mammals to watch as they prance and frolic on the ground and are very adept climbers.  I view them as a mixed blessing in the garden as they will help control the Short Tailed voles that treat our plants as their own private vegetable garden and the rabbits that stupidly venture under the fences.  But I know it will not stop with the odd killing for immediate food.  While there is living food they will hunt it down and stockpile for the future. Building a nest high in a tree will not save the occupants from the larder.  I have often quoted the gamekeeper I knew whose young pheasants were just leaving the release pen.  One morning there were nearly 80 corpses all dragged into cover and all showing a single bite of the neck.  This was the work of one stoat early one morning.  It has already dragged the corpse of a Squirrel under shrub tubes stored in our old kennel, the head was separated from the body and then left for the future.  I could probably rent the Stoat out round the village for those with a Squirrel problem round their bird feeders.

Syl has just told me that the Green Sandpiper is back on our lagoon.  It has returned for several years running during the winter or early spring while on migration and is probably the same individual.

Wildlife Reports January 2008

Mark Giles heard four foxes calling one night, one at Duckend Green, two within the village and one in the direction of Old Hall Farm.  These were probably males following a vixen on heat.  This is a time of the year when roving males seek out females to mate.
Geoff Stone Braintree Green saw a spiralling red Kite over his house, the first sighting this year.
Harold Giles has seen a Lesser spotted woodpecker around the Duckend Green area.  I would appreciate more reports on this as it is now very uncommon in Essex and nationally is thought to still be in decline.  It is very small and said to be elusive by birders that often cannot find it.