This month’s number is 40 – wood pigeons and fieldfares. In November it struck me as slightly odd that I was considering a flock of forty wood pigeons to be noteworthy as, in the past, counts of a hundred were not so unusual, and in the winter of 1985-6 I twice counted a thousand erupting as a dark cloud over the oakwood where they had been gorging on acorns. I hesitate to say that they darkened the skies – we are not, after all discussing passenger pigeons here – but it was certainly an impressive spectacle, and it leaves me wondering why numbers should have dropped off so markedly over the past 35 years. It could be that there are simply fewer birds wintering in Kent now, or that they can find food more to their liking elsewhere. Data for wintering birds are hard to come by, but the breeding population in the south east has increased since the 1990s, although stabilising in recent years, so it seems unlikely that numbers per se are the explanation and, as with so much to do with wildlife, the answer eludes me. Interestingly, in recent years I haven’t needed to protect my purple sprouting broccoli from marauding pigeons, which does perhaps suggest that there are fewer birds around in the winter months now. Come the summer months, by contrast, a variety of crops from plums and gooseberries to blackcurrants and swedes, do still need to be netted, despite the suggestion from my own records that, at variance with the Kent trend, the local breeding population has declined since the 1990s.
The second forty was a flock of fieldfares that I disturbed from an area of dense, scrubby birch. Although it was only 3pm, a low layer of dreary black cloud meant I was almost stumbling around in the gloaming, and it seems likely that the birds were actually preparing to roost for the night. Unlike redwings, which will sometimes feed on the woodland floor, fieldfares generally ignore the reserve, and most of my records are of birds flying over, or deigning to pause briefly in the treetops before moving on to somewhere far more congenial.
The 24 goats that are helping to maintain the heath as an open habitat may be domesticated animals, but their forebears lived a wild and precarious existence. That they still have primordial instincts surging through their blood and along their nerves was brought home to me the other evening when a fox suddenly barked nearby and every goat’s head jerked up to assess the threat before, reassured, they were able to resume their all-consuming task of eating. Exactly what they feed on seems to vary from day to day; on my most recent visit they were hungrily nibbling off the more nutritious tips of heather shoots, but at other times they seem to prefer birch, bramble, broom or gorse.
As mentioned last month, non-members of the RSPB are welcome to join the local group’s Zoom talks. The next meeting will be held at 7.30pm on 12th January, when Stuart Andrews will talk about bee-keeping in Africa and his involvement with the charity Bees Abroad. All we ask is that you make a donation of at least £2 to help us cover our costs, as speakers still need to be paid! Email michaelwalter434@gmail.com if you would like me to send you the link for this or any future meetings.
Michael Walter
michaelwalter434@gmail.com
01227 462491