This is Michael Walter's report for July and August:
Although not blessed with a keen sense of smell, even I cannot help but be knocked out by the heady, honey scent of the ling, now in full bloom. In a normal year this becomes a magnet for gatekeeper butterflies, hanging upside down to probe into the throat of each purple flower for the nectar. Unfortunately, this is not a normal year; butterfly numbers are as low as they have ever been, and the heather flowers stand unoccupied. Other plants that can usually be expected to attract good numbers of meadow browns and gatekeepers are common fleabane and ragwort, but these, too, remain resolutely devoid of supping insects. Just about the only glimmer in this despondency is that brimstones, though still not common, are more frequent this year than at any time since 1997. Two or three of these magnificent butterflies feeding on thistles or knapweed make a positively breathtaking conjunction of lemon yellow on regal magenta sumptuousness.
Spotted flycatchers appear to have had their best season for 18 years. Back in 1982 when I arrived at Blean Woods, spotted flycatchers were as frequent as great spotted woodpeckers, blackcaps and chiffchaffs, a position they lost in 1998, when numbers slumped, never to recover fully. It is thought that much of the problem lies in their African winter quarters, but we don’t yet know what exactly that problem is or why the species should be making a partial recovery now.That’s the good news; the bad news is that marsh tit was all but extinct on my monitored plot.Never a common bird, marsh tit numbers have fluctuated between one and seven territories over the years, but this is the first time I’ve failed to find a single territory. What worries me is that its very close relative, the willow tit, only with difficulty distinguished from its cousin in the field, actually became extinct in Kent some years ago and nationally has declined massively in the past twenty years, being absent now from most of south east England. Various suggestions have been put forward to explain the decline, but none seem capable of accounting for its extent, and now it looks as though the same may be happening to the marsh tit: numbers are falling, and its range is contracting a little, but we don’t know why.
I have written about hobbies before: dashing falcons that have bucked the trend for so many other birds by actually increasing in southern England. One or more pairs have bred in the wood for some years, choosing to take over an old squirrel drey or crow nest rather than build their own. This year I haven’t seen them in the vicinity of a traditional nest site, but there has been a fair amount of activity elsewhere on the reserve, though I haven’t managed to track down where they are nesting.Adults calling in flight recently was suggestive of the presence of anearby nest with young (they time their breeding season so that there are chicks in the nest in mid-summer when their main prey – dragonflies and inexperienced young birds – are most abundant). Passing through a small heathland area yesterday where hobbies have bred previously, in the vain hope of seeing one there, I instead stumbled on a tree pipit. These slim, brownish birds, not so unlike a small song thrush, are teetering on the edge of extinction on the reserve, having been very scarce but regular breeders up until the turn of the century. They hadn’t nested in this particular patch of heath for nine years, but on an early springmorning I heard one singing there. Not finding it again, I assumed it had moved on, but the baffling appearance of yesterday’s bird had me wondering if it, or a pair, had been lurking there all summer. That is possible, but I think it more likely this was an early autumn migrant bird that called in briefly, liked what it saw, and stayed a little longer.
Heather in Blean Woods
Hobby (photo by Dave Smith)