Wildlife Reports for October and November 2007

Christmas is not far off and by the time you read this will be over.  It is at Christmas when I usually receive the most reports and I hope this Christmas is no different.  It is a time of the year when many of you have a holiday from work and take to the footpaths round the village.  If it's a family walk take the opportunity to have a competition looking for tracks in the mud or snow and see how many animals you can recognise.  Look for birds feeding in the hedges, trees and on the ground and let me have your lists.  On a recent frosty morning I counted 16 species of bird in the garden before leaving for work.  This did not include several common species that I see regularly.

Matt Hicks Elm Walk, had a Hedgehog shuffling around by the back door, this is most encouraging and the number of hedgehog records from the centre of the village this year is considerably greater than the previous few years.  Records from the rest of the Parish have been virtually non-existant.  We did have one dropping on our lawn last spring but none since.  I have lived at Goulds for over 40 years and Hedgehogs were very common until Badger numbers started to increase.  There is now increasing acceptance that Badgers are one of the causes for the decline of Hedgehogs.  Matt also heard an Owl which was sitting on his neighbour's roof and when it flew off was about 10 inches head to tail.  This was almost certainly a Little Owl, a diurnal species that spends a lot of time at night on lawns and fields feeding on Earthworms when they come to the surface.

James Bateman walking along Pods Brook at 11am one morning put up a magnificent, almost black, Fallow buck from just 30 ft away.  It ran a few yards then stopped and grazed and it was another five minutes before it walked off.  This is a good example of the range of colours shown by Fallow in this area which range from off white to virtually black like James's sighting.  It also shows how habituated some animals have become to humans.  The local black deer are probably descendents from the animals given by the King of Denmark to James 1st in the early 17th Century.  These were kept in a deer enclosure in Epping Forest.  There are earlier reports of black Fallow deer in other parts of the country.  James saw his first Redwing on the 19th October and listened to a Skylark singing, the latter probably thought spring had arrived.

Phil Monk Brunwin Road, watched a Grey Heron by their garden pond which took off vertically like a jump jet.  I met a trout farmer once who had covered his ponds with large mesh netting.  The herons had learnt to dive through the mesh closing their wings as they did so.  A Sparrow Hawk is using a tree at the end of Phil's garden as a lookout post and a Brambling has also visited the garden.  We had a Brambling in our garden once a long time ago.  Phil has seen a Little Egret in the field on the left just before the Sunlido.  He also sees Hedgehogs regularly in the garden as well as their droppings.  They trigger the security light and one came and helped itself to sultanas put out for the birds at 7am in the morning.

Caroline Sheldrake had a Woodcock fly up from their natural pond in the garden, not quite the habitat where one would expect to find them.  Like most wildlife it obviously did not read the books. Robert Bucknall reported a Fallow deer that had died giving birth on the 12th of November, another animal that was confused by our strange seasons.  Unlike Muntjac they do not normally breed throughout the year. Fiona Rowley who lives just outside the parish saw a Ring Ouzel at the beginning of November in her old orchard with longish grass.  I should add that Fiona lived for a long time in Scotland and is very familiar with the bird. Reg Salmon Shalford Road saw a Sparrow Hawk catch a Starling, though the bird saw him he was able to step back in doors and watch the hawk pluck the starling and then eat it.  This took about ten minutes and is the closest Reg has been to a Sparrow Hawk. Angela Fairhurst found a dead stoat along Pods Lane this is probably the same one reported by Mr. Salmon and the one Syl and I have seen alive on numerous occasions this summer.  At least the rabbits will celebrate its demise.

Arriving home about 10pm one night I watched a Badger in the car headlights.  It was only about 10m away and was feeding probably on earthworms in the grass.  Two cars passed the Badger as they drove along Shalford Road but though they were only 2 - 3mts away the Badger seemed oblivious of them.  I watched for well over 10 minutes as the badger ignored my car engine noise and the headlights, it even worked its way back towards me before I left it in peace.  While watching it ate a large number of worms and every so often stopped to sniff the air.  This was probably the badger that had been living in the drain culvert along Shalford Road until the recent wet weather caused it to relocate.  I have had two sightings of the Jack Snipe on our farm lagoon.  The second time it was sitting on a short stake above the water like a Kingfisher, another example of a bird not reading the books.  Jack Snipes normally skulk along the bank and if seen sit close to the ground perfectly still and very well camouflaged.  I also watched a Kestrel stoop on a moorhen that just managed to escape into cover.  It then sat in a tree waiting for it to reappear.  I have been told in the past about a Kestrel taking a Grey Partridge.  Kestrels do not normally try to take such large prey but I will not repeat what I wrote about wildlife not reading books.  Syl had a sighting of a Red Admiral butterfly on 21st November, it was newly emerged and pristine.  This butterfly migrates into this country each spring.  There is now much evidence to suggest that it also survives in hibernation in this country over the winter.  It is able to fly at night and in very cold weather.  I have left the best report to last, Syl saw a Barn Owl in our yard recently, the first for nearly 35 years.  We have not seen it again yet.

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