Regular readers of my Monday morning blog will be aware that I like a rarity and my weekends are often spent tracking down species I haven’t seen before here in the UK, or exciting recent arrivals such as the Bee-eaters in Nottinghamshire and the tremendous flora and bats of the Avon and Cheddar Gorges.
So today I intend to carry on in that vein, but also share a lesson I learned about the need to keep your eyes open close to home.
I spent Saturday working on my new book (can’t reveal too much yet), and at midday news of a truly monstrous, very rare and very exciting bird came through. The world’s largest tern (one of my favourite families of birds) had dropped in to some pits north of Peterborough. The Caspian tern, as big as a large gull and with a huge carrot-like beak, is a tern that has looks like it has spent a lot of time at the gym. I have seen three before in the UK and have seen a good few on my travels abroad, so it was head back down.
By 4pm, and 2,000 words later, I took the decision that I was due a reward and a much-needed screen break and with the bird staying remarkably settled, I was off up the A1 on the 45 minute journey to Baston and Langtoft pits in Lincolnshire. The “beast” was on show as soon as I pulled up and I enjoyed it for 20 minutes before heading back for more writing.
One of the fabulous gardens featured in Nature's Home magazine's wildlife gardening slot - I bet there are hundreds of species lurking here (Andy Hay)
The following day, it was nose to the grindstone again with the book, but I did pop outside a few times for a break to look among the raspberry canes, on the roses and in the privet hedge. I managed to find four creatures I had never seen before! There was a lovely little trembling-winged fly (yes that is their real name), two different species of tiny black parasitic wasps and a plant bug on my runner beans. Admittedly, I have yet to identify them but if ever I needed a reminder of the wildlife on my doorstep (cue shameless plug for Wildlife on Your Doorstep), this was it.
Pipistrelle bat by Chris Shields (you'll need a bat detector to know which species you are seeing)
Dusk detectionsYou might have read about my new toy: a bat detector. I have seen pipistrelle bats for many years flying at dusk around the trees where I park my car at my local patch of Grafham Water and I was keen to try out the detector and finally put a name to the species. They seemed to take a long while to come out, but soon after 10pm, the woods had several of them flittering under the canopy out of the wind. The soprano pipistrelle has only recently been discovered as a different species to the common but its echo-locatary calls can be detected at a different frequency to common. I was hoping for sopranos, having confirmed commons at home last week. Sure enough, the detector spluttered into life with the characteristic “wet slap” noise at the higher frequency and I had a new species: this one just five miles from home.
Yes, there's definitely a lesson to be learned from my wildlife weekend.