Dearne Valley

View From The Shed bt Shaun Finnie - NEW SEASON, NEW LIFE

2023-04-20T09:12:00Z

NEW SEASON, NEW LIFE

Have you finished all your Easter eggs yet? I know that this celebration of new life was only a couple of weeks ago so some of you might still have a chocolaty treat or two lying around but I bet most of you have snarfed them up long ago. There are certainly none left in my house.

Easter may now be a full calendar page behind us but most birds in the natural world are yet to move on to the business of egg laying. Many of them are still in the courtship stage of their relationships but there have been a few early starters. I've already seen a few fluffy chicks around and it's always a lovely sight. For example, the baby Mallards don't mess about with that “helpless in the nest” malarkey. They are up and active from day one, following their mothers across the water like little wind-up balls of fluff, too buoyant to even duck under the surface until they've put on a few grammes. They're guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. Hopefully, yours too.

So forget the chocolate eggs, the real thing is much more impressive. All birds lay eggs. It's a defining characteristic of being a bird. And these magical ovoid packages contain everything that the embryo needs to grow from fertilised cell to peeping ball of fluffy cuteness. Mother bird just needs to keep it dry and add the heat of her body until it's time for the youngster to make a break for freedom.

Each species' egg has perfectly evolved over many thousands of years to supply just as much protection and nutrition as its resident chick needs to survive until hatching. Nature doesn't waste anything, so there isn't any more foodstuff than the chick requires. And of course, any less and the baby bird wouldn't survive. As always, nature provides all things in balance.

Eggs are perfect for the job they do but I have real trouble understanding how birds manage to paint them in so many different colours. The speckles surely require a paintbrush? That's difficult for wings to brandish. And if we've established that no bird can make blue pigment for their feathers (see my UP ABOVE THE STREETS AND HOUSES blog for the mind-blowing details) then how can some, like Dunnocks or Blackbirds, create blue eggs? Egg colouration is a dark art that's lost on me. Let's just say that most of the ones that are visible to predators are camouflaged in some way, and the ones that spend their early days in a nest tucked away in a tree or a bush are usually some kind of blue or green; they're the colours of sky and leaves. That's as far as my understanding goes. My head hurts. All I know is that the thickness and strength of the shell are a perfect balance between being tough enough to protect its little passenger but thin enough for that precious chick to be able to break out once it's big and healthy enough to survive outside.

I'm on safer scientific ground once we dig inside the egg shell. The embryonic bird is encased in the yellow or orange yolk of the egg. This yolk contains just enough fats and proteins for the embryo to grow and develop into a fully formed chick, ready to meet the harsh realities of life as a tiny bird. The yolk contains antibodies too, to give the chick some protection against the outside world's diseases.

Surrounding the yolk is the albumen or the white of the egg. This is one of nature's greatest antibacterial products. Not only does it protect the growing chick from germs and other tiny nasties but it also cushions the embryo against movement within the egg. Think of it as foam rubber or a series of springs. That yellow yolk sac is fragile and the baby won't survive without it so it needs as much protection as the shell and albumen can give it.

And once the chick bursts the egg sac and attempts to chip its way out of its shell cell, there's a welcoming bubble that contains just enough air to give a healthy chick time to make a break for freedom. Once again, it's just enough. There's no waste. There can't afford to be. With that in mind, remember that most little-to-mid-sized birds (think ducks and smaller) lay more eggs than are actually required to maintain their gene pool and population numbers. I know, we all love the cutesy wutesy ikkle wikkle chickies, but the truth is that this overpopulation is a much-needed natural event. Not to paint too grisly a picture, but many carnivores and omnivores rely upon this seasonal abundance of protein to survive, just as many birds need the springtime glut of caterpillars or flying insects. Other birds and mammals are the main predators of eggs and their contents but large fish too will take a chick down into the depths, and their stomachs. All of this predation is not bad or nasty. It's beyond that, beyond good and evil. It just is. It's nature at its most natural. And if we love watching a Blue Tit grow from chick to adult on that diet of caterpillers, then we must love the Sparrowhawk that takes some of those same chicks back for her own babies to grow too.

So that's my egg blog. Perhaps it will make you appreciate these shelled wonders a little more? I hope so, but I can't believe I've made it this far without making any eggstremely eggscrutiating puns. Sometimes I even crack myself up. The yolk's on me. Perhaps Old Moor should shell out for a funnier blogger.

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - WHITE, FEATHERY AND OVERLOOKED

2023-04-13T11:58:00Z

WHITE, FEATHERY AND OVERLOOKED

If you've ever seen me at RSPB Old Moor's Welcome Shed then you'll know that I'm rarely seen there without a big, wide-brimmed Tilley on my head. In fact I've only accidentally left it at home once. I felt naked without it, and that's not good for anybody. I do like a good hat. Some might say it's a bad hat or even a ridiculous one. It's certainly an expensive one. But one thing that I could never tolerate is a feathered hat and, thankfully, neither could Emily Williamson which is why in 1889 she and some like-minded ladies formed what would eventually become the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Their objection to the slaughter of birds just for their feathers to adorn fashionable headwear (what they termed 'murderous millinery') lead to Parliament passing the 1921 Plumage (Prohibition) Act, the first of many victories for the Society.

One of the birds that benefited the most from their actions was the Little Egret, having been one of those most heavily sought by the hat makers for their beautiful long white feathers. Beautiful on the Egret, that is; less so on the headwear of the best-dressed ladies about town. Thankfully, like so many fashions, it petered out, mostly because of the change in the law but also due to the horror felt by these ladies when they learned of the decimation of the Egrets, just so they could have a plume on their heads instead of on the birds'. It's easy to say, “they must have known” but sometimes we're blind to the ecological damage that we do. They just didn't see (or want to see) how their purchases affected the natural world. It's the same today with the likes of fossil fuels and micro-plastics. Only a few decades ago people merrily consumed these products without a first, let alone a second thought. Now... well at least there are considerations and discussions. Nobody can claim innocence through ignorance. Education is a great tool in the conservationist's collection. Just look at the successful work of David Attenborough. He doesn't rant and scream, he just calmly tells us the facts and lets us see the impact of our actions. That's how you bring about real change. And that's how Little Egrets were brought back from a perilously dire situation.

These birds have been recorded in Britain since the early 1400s when they were just known as Egret – the name derived from the French for 'little Heron'. Those medieval folks were well acquainted with the Grey Heron too but also knew a bird which was at the time referred to as the White Heron. I like that much better than our modern day name of Great Egret. You can read much more about this entire family of birds in my earlier piece, WASHED IN PERSIL.

We've become somewhat accustomed to the Great Whites dropping in to these reserves occasionally and we're more than a little excited about the chances of Spoonbills staying in the Dearne Valley for the entire Summer again – maybe even breeding here. Spoonbills are back with us right now so the possibilities of us hearing the ugly squawk of little spoonlings are increasing. Fingers crossed. Perhaps I'll even get to see a Cattle Egret at Old Moor one day.

These are all beautiful birds but nobody ever mentions the bird that has become so common that it's almost insignificant on every wetland reserve the RSPB looks after. It's totally disregarded, yet without the plight of the Little Egret there would probably not even be any RSPB. Thankfully they're a relatively common bird in our wetlands these days and there is little concern about their population numbers. And because of that they're often overlooked. I've even said it myself on occasion. “Ooh, what's that white bird over there? Oh, it's only a Little Egret.” Shame on me. Granted, they don't have the impressive size or rarity (around here at least) of their other herony cousins but they're magnificent, stately and dazzling waders. They do indeed look like they've been washed in a certain well-known washing powder famed for its whitening properties but that's not all that they have to offer the discerning birdwatcher. How about the way they hunch themselves against the wind. Or the cautious step as they move through the shallows. I dare you not to smile at their sudden burst of speed as they chase down some small prey. You don't need to be a fashionista to appreciate the elegant curves of their crest plumes. And just look at their ridiculously bright yellow clown-shoe feet! There's so much to enjoy about a Little Egret and, thankfully, you can usually see them at Old Moor and the other RSPB sites in the Dearne Valley all year round.

And the weather's changeable at the moment. You might want to bring a hat. Just leave the feathers on the birds please.

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - VIENETTA ON STILTS

2023-04-06T11:29:00Z

VIENETTA ON STILTS

If you've read any of these blogs before then you'll know that I love the unusual names, both ancient and modern, that people give to birds. I find it wonderful that there are so many different ways to name any particular bird and that someone, somewhere in the country will know precisely to what you are referring. And all these names are just as valid as each other so long as the other party understands the reference. After all who (apart from possibly Countdown's Susie Dent) is to say that Little Grebe is in any way a 'better' name than the more colloquial Dabchick? If it was good enough for my dear old Grandad...

My wife is great at describing birds in ways that have helped us both to remember what they are. For instance, if one of us mentions a Golf Ball on a Stick, then we instantly recognise the target bird as a Long Tailed Tit. If she says that she's seen a Ziggy Stardust Duck then I'll know she's spotted a Teal with it's Bowie-esque markings around the eye. Similarly, a Klingon Duck is a Wigeon due to the yellow Cornish pasty marking on its forehead. You get the picture. I certainly do.

But my favourite way of her describing any bird was when she saw an elegant black and white wader for the first time. Because of her description we now almost always refer to these birds as 'Vienetta on stilts' because that's what they reminded her of. They're mostly white but have black streaks running along their sides looking like they have layers of chocolate running through them. And they stand really high in the water which makes sense as they're part of the Stilt family.

You can make a mode of our image for yourself at home with a yummy ice cream desert and some straws. Just stuff a pair into one end and sit back to admire your work before it melts. Or you could just take my word for it and eat the Vienetta, your choice.

Known in various parts of the country as Yelper, Crooked-Bill, Scooper, Barker, Clinker, Cobbler's Awl or Butterflip, it's current name basically means “the Italian Bird”, from the Latin for bird, Avis. Many of those old names come from the strange inverse curve shape of their bill or from the sound they make. I adore those old descriptive names, but these days most people call just them Avocets (I suspect you'd already guessed that) and its mostly thanks to the efforts of the RSPB that you can see them around these parts today.

By about 1830 they had totally disappeared from Britain. Habitat loss was a major contributor but the then-fashionable boyhood habit of egg collecting played its part in their plummeting population too. Whatever the reason, they were gone.

A century later the newly-formed RSPB made a conscious decision to try to return them to our shores and, by a twin-pronged plan of education and persuading some landowners to set aside habitat for them to nest on, they eventually came back. Land in Suffolk that had been flooded by the military during the Second World War as a deterrent to possible German invasion was the perfect site and when seven brave pairs of birds decided to set up home there in 1947 the RSPB placed a full-time watch over their secretive nesting site. If we could see off Hitler then we could certainly foil a few naughty egg thieves! Approximately sixteen chicks fledged that Summer and they became national news. This was at a time when post-war Britain badly needed cheering, and the story of the returning birds mirrored that of long-missed loved ones coming home from the trenches. These peaceful white birds somehow became a figure of hope where for years there had been little or none.

Their numbers increased slowly at first but by 1970 the Avocet's return was deemed so successful that they became the poster-bird for the RSPB, a symbol of what the Society could do if given the correct backing and support. So here we are, fifty-odd years later, with the bird's image still holding pride of place on the Society's latest official logo. Much more importantly there are around two thousand breeding pairs up and down the country (mostly along the east coast), and upwards of ten times that figure choosing to spend their winters here. That's still nowhere near the high population figures of centuries past but it's stepping in the right direction. What was a rarity in my boyhood is now a bird that we expect to see return regularly every year.

They're usually seen wading in (to them) knee-deep water, using that incredible upturned beak to either pick tiny treats from the water's surface or using it to sift through the silt below for small worms and crustaceans. They can even upend while swimming in deeper water to dabble, in a way similar to that of many duck species.

Why the interest in Avocets this week? Well, there's currently a large flock of these gorgeous monochrome waders at Old Moor's sister site, Adwick Washlands (use postcode DN5 7FR for your SatNav). At the time of writing (the first week of April) there are over fifty Avocet at that reserve and they look like they're settled for a while. They're beautiful birds to watch and it's great to reflect on their history and how it's permanently linked to our organisation. Please make an effort to see some over the Spring. You'll be glad you did.

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - ICE, ICE, BABY

2023-03-30T09:51:00Z

ICE, ICE, BABY

...or “What I Did On My Holidays by Volunteer Shaun, aged 57 and 3/4”

At the time of writing I'm waiting for a flight home from Iceland. My holiday has been absolutely wonderful although I could have lived without the ridiculous 65mph winds. Even the local people, who are used to high winds coming straight down from the Arctic, admitted that this was a little blustery. I struggled to walk forwards against the wind. My wife (who is much smaller and lighter than me) had a job on to even remain upright. We saw other people fail to maintain even that basic human requirement. I'm sure that the Icelanders tie a string to their children's ankles, just in case. “Fly me like a kite, Papa!”

These somewhat blowy conditions had just a small bearing on my enjoyment of our trip, but a massive bearing on the number of birds that we saw while we were away. I found a book while I was over there. It was in English, it looked like I'd enjoy it immensely and, like everything on that island, it was ridiculously expensive. It was simply titled 'Birds of Iceland' and I was sorely tempted to buy it. In the end, I'm glad I didn't. If it really had been a book of birds that I had a chance of seeing then almost every single page would have been totally blank.

We saw Ravens. Of course we saw Ravens, they're part of Iceland's national identity. And we saw Whooper Swans aplenty on a pond in downtown Reykjavik. They were as numerous as Mallards in an English park pond and just as hungry. But the Gyrfalcons? The rare ducks? The Puffins and other seabirds? All missing, all gone, all in hiding. There were hardly any birds to be seen in the capitol city and once we were out into the barren centre of the island the situation was even bleaker. There were absolutely no birds at all. Nothing. No gulls, no songbirds, no pigeons; the skies were empty.

Of course, at home things have been different. If I'd stayed at home and looked for birds on the RSPB sites along my home Dearne Valley then the chances are that I'd have seen some of the following birds... Garganey, Sand Martin, Wheatear, Ring-Necked Duck, Green Sandpiper, Pink-Footed Geese, Whooper Swans, Water Pipits, Little Gull, an Osprey and our valley's first Spoonbill of the year. People who have stayed close to Old Moor, Wombwell Ings and Adwick Washlands could have seen some of these. Me on my travels, not so much. And, to rub salt into the metaphorical wound, the views of the Northern Lights were apparently much better back in Yorkshire too. I don't know why I bothered.

Regular readers may remember that I had similar results when I went to Bavaria last month. I travelled in hope but came home having seen none of the area's 'signature' bird species. In both these holidays I had a lovely time but saw hardly any birds that I couldn't see at some point of the year back home. So what lessons have I learned from these bird-less holidays?

1 – Do your homework. Don't just find out what birds can be seen in your destination but pinpoint exactly where, and how likely is it that they'll be there? We've had Glossy Ibis and Little Bittern visit Old Moor in years past but if you expect to see them every time you come then you'll be frequently disappointed, just like I was by expecting to see Barrow's Goldeneye and King Eider ducks. Yes these birds can be seen in Iceland but not in the particular areas that I visited.

2 – Check your calendar. This might actually be a subset of lesson 1 but it benefits from being said separately. I'd hoped to see Merlin while I was there. These little hunters are one of the island's few raptors. Sadly, if I'd done more research I'd have found that most of them find the Icelandic winters too harsh and from October to April they migrate southwards... to Britain.

3 – Manage your expectations. If you travel with a list of a dozen birds that you hope to see, be happy if you actually spot three or four of them. Just because they live in a particular place doesn't mean that you'll see them all. I volunteer at Old Moor's welcome shed, but that doesn't mean that I'll be there at the very moment that you pop by.

4 – Love what you see and don't fume about what you missed. Yes, I'd have liked to have seen some more of Iceland's birds but I still had an absolutely magnificent time. How could I not when there were Northern Lights, geysers, frozen waterfalls, Humpback Whales and a land of stunningly beautiful desolation to see? Iceland, you were wonderful. I plan on going back to see more of you, but could you hold off on the wind a bit next time please?

So back home at RSPB Dearne Valley, maybe some of those birds that I missed are still around? If so, they'll be on the sightings board. I hope you have better luck than me. And much less wind.

View From The Shed by Alvin Hickling - VIEW FROM THE ARCHIVIST

2023-03-23T10:33:00Z

VIEW FROM THE ARCHIVIST

Hi everyone. If you were expecting one of Shaun's blogs then you are probably disappointed. He's unavailable at the moment so has asked me to step in as Guest Blogger for the week. My name's Alvin and I regularly inhabit the very same "Welcome Shed" as Shaun, but that is about where the similarities between us end. As far as birds are concerned we would be placed at the opposite ends of the knowledge scale. I might be able to count on two hands the number of species that I could recognise. But I am a trier... by the end of 2023 I may need a third hand, or a foot perhaps.

My knowledge of birds is very limited so I'm not quite sure what RSPB saw in me as a volunteer but they say everyone is good at something. I would have to say my talent is probably being a bit of a detective. In other words perhaps I'm just inquisitive but never nosy. Since 2011 I've had my own Genealogy business – www.discoveryourroots.co.uk . It's been going very well since then; I've created about 200 family trees, unravelled a host of family rumours and reunited a decent number of absent relatives with their families.

As an RSPB Welcome Volunteer we are generally paired up with a paid fundraiser. Many a fundraiser paired with me has gone home armed with more information about their family than when they arrived that morning. A bit of detective work on cold wet and dark days can make the time pass quicker when there are few visitors around.

Then late last year I was asked the question, “Do you fancy helping us with the Heritage Project as 30th March is the 20th Anniversary of RSPB Old Moor?” I could only ever say “Yes”. Now, I'm fine researching people but buildings? Hmmm. I really was worried that this would be more difficult than anticipated. How was I going to find something worth calling 'Heritage'. I had no idea where to start as after all Old Moor was just a farm wasn't it? How wrong could a person be. It's now around 6 months since I began the project and I think the volume of material we now have justifies it's own mini museum. I was told a few months ago that my "Welcome Volunteer" badge was going to be replaced with "Curator". Hopefully the badge comes with a 50% pay rise.

I have to be careful not to give away too much detail of the findings prior to the Heritage Weekend on Saturday and Sunday the 1st and 2nd April, but one thing is for sure and that is Old Moor was never just a farm. We've produced a timeline for the farm that stretches from around 1516 to the present day. Many changes have taken place and significant individuals have occupied its dwellings. The farm and surrounding Dearne Valley has gone through monumental changes in the last 50 years alone, from being called the largest most polluted area in Europe, to recently being awarded a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) title. How cool is that?

So where was I to begin? That was a dilemma. I gave it some thought and decided there would be 3 directions from which to attack, mainly in a hope that something interesting might fall in my lap during the process.

1 – Anyone visiting Old Moor probably knows that in the courtyard area there are a series of stone carvings sited on the walls, about 10 in total. Well in actual fact there are almost 50 in total and to me they look old. How old I wondered, 100 years, 150 years? Who was the craftsman? Shows how much I know as it appears they were created by the stonemasons doing the renovations around 1998. Not ancient but still, it's part of the heritage.

2 – There is a date stone above the shop/café entrance which was the old barn. 1755 is the date but rumours of even older beams in the farmhouse prompted the second line of attack. I researched and found someone to come and examine the buildings and surrounding area. David Cook of YVBSG (Yorkshire Vernacular Building Study Group) kindly agreed to come down from Durham to conduct the report. He did a fine job of the report but then he would do – he was born in Barnsley. His report allows us to see where the farm fitted into the landscape back as far as 1615. He tasked me with digging out old documents for him as part of my learning experience. Acquiring them and understanding them were 2 different things though. Thank you to the Archive Departments at Barnsley, Sheffield and Cambridge for their help.

3 – The third area was something I was comfortable with; people. I was able to trace the occupants of the farm back in time as far as 1782 using census and a variety of other archive documents. There have been some great characters along the way. Between 1782 and 1998 only 2 families have occupied Old Moor... the Brookes and the Gascoignes. Before 1782 the occupant was responsible for creating an annual event that has been celebrated worldwide since. A clue is the size of the stable block. That's the big building behind the Welcome Hut . According to David Cook of YVBSG the stable block is far too big for a farm the size of Old Moor. All will be revealed later. As I said earlier, Old Moor was never just a farm.

There is so much history at Old Moor. Some of which I have managed to capture but I suspect there could be lots still out there waiting to be found. War heroes, war diaries , commemorative swords, Flying Circus (not Monty Python), 33 Squadron, horse racing, organic farming and then there are the birds. Don't forget the birds.

Please take time out to visit the Heritage Exhibition along with lots of other goings on like trails and theatre making it a great weekend at Old Moor on Saturday and Sunday the 1st and 2nd April.

I hope I filled Shaun's boots in a good way for you. He'll be back next week.

Alvin Hickling

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - WHERE IS CASPIA, ANYWAY?

2023-03-16T10:20:00Z

WHERE IS CASPIA, ANYWAY?

I've written about gulls before. It's safe to say that I'm not a fan of them. I know that nature exists outside of the laws, rules and emotions that we place upon each other so there's no way that any creature can be seen as good or bad, virtuous or evil. They all exist simply to exist and to propagate their species. But if I were to anthropomorphise gulls then I'd have to give them some of the worst of human traits. They're sneaky, sly and opportunistic. They eat the young of others with no remorse and they even try to steal my chips. Like all nature, they have no knowledge of why they act as they do and they've evolved to be as good as they need to be to survive in their particular niche, but that doesn't mean that I like them.

Over the last few weeks we've had quite a few visitors to Old Moor looking for a couple of birds that we do not see on the reserve (or even in the area) all that frequently. The three most common questions that visitors are asking me at the moment (after, “How come the infamous Blue Door has been painted grey?”) are, “Are they still here?”, “Whereabouts are they?” and worst of all, “How will I recognise them?”. In case you hadn't guessed from the title, 'they' are two young CASPIAN GULLS and I dislike them intently.

Here's another reason why gulls hold a special place in my heart (and it's not in the good place alongside Red Pandas and the music of David Bowie). So many gulls look like lots of other different kinds of gulls. And when they grow up a bit they look like a completely other group of gulls, all of which still look very different from their parents. It's as if they've been created as some kind of cosmic joke, just to annoy birdwatchers.

But if you're still determined to pick these birds out in a crowd, here's Volunteer Shaun's in-depth guide to our juvenile Caspian gulls. I say it's mine, but big chunks of it are ripped from my handy-dandy book of how to identify confusing species. As you can guess, a large portion of that book is given over to gulls.

When I was a lad (insert your own joke about dinosaurs here) we had the humble Herring Gull and that was it. They were plentiful and even someone with no interest and even less knowledge of birds could recognise them. They were the quintessential 'seagull'. However recent genetic studies have shown that as well as this 'pure' parent Herring Gull species there are now at least six evolutionary distinctive offshoots. Thanks, science. Of these, the two species that visit England most often are the Yellow-Legged Gull and the Caspian Gull. They're both very similar to Herring Gulls but different enough to now be classed as separate species in the own right. To make things even more complicated, they can all interbreed and hybridise so those six Herring-like species (or more – even geneticists can't agree on the exact number) can become an infinite number of sub-species over a few generations. It's making my head hurt.

If you come to visit the reserve, our Caspian Gulls can usually be seen to the left of the Lookout family hide, on our Island Number One. We call it that because it has a big number one sign on it. There's a clue in the name. The birds in question are both juveniles and confusingly they look the same shape and size as a young Herring Gull. To make matters more interesting there is a group of Herring Gulls on the island as well, among which our target duo have been spending much of their time. The Caspians both have jet black beaks and dark, sunken eyes. The feathers around the eyes are very dark too, as if they've been heavily smudged with smoky Kohl like a 1920s screen starlet. The guidebooks all say that a Caspie's forehead slopes backwards a little more than other Herring-based gulls, as if they've been slapped across it too many times and it's caved in a little. Honestly, I don't see that too much in our individuals but I'm no expert. Sometimes these small details can be very small indeed. The feathers on their backs and the edges of their wings are sort of a scalloped mousey brown with white flecks. They have a dark bar just above the 'elbow' of their closed wing too – that's across the outer greater coverts to those who like technical names of feather areas. The head and neck of a young Caspian gull is somewhat cleaner and whiter than that of similar gulls as well.

All of this goes to show how difficult identification of gulls can be at the best of times. A lot of it is location – knowing which birds are likely to be in the particular area you see them. But our particular birds are not where they would usually be seen so that's an added layer of confusion. For me, the best thing to do is to ask a grown-up. If our head warden and other, more experienced birders on the site all agree that these birds are Caspian Gulls then I'll take their word for it and record them as such. I can see some gulls that they look a bit different from those around them so that must be they. This is when birdwatching steps beyond the bounds of being a simple calming hobby and into a whole new realm of scientific seriousness. It's up to each individual how far they want to delve into that particular metaphorical rabbit hole.

I hope that these birds are still here by the time you read this. They've been on the reserve for a while but that's no guarantee that they haven't moved on between the times of writing and reading. A photo of the latest Sightings Board should be attached to this post but even if they aren't here at the moment I'm sure that some others of their species will be around soon enough. Or something that looks like them will be, just to confuse us all over again.

So gulls in general? Love them or loathe them they have just as much a right to exist as any other creature on Earth, including us. But I just wish they came with name badges.

View From The Shed by Shaun FInnie - OUT OF THE SUN

2023-03-09T11:00:00Z

OUT OF THE SUN

Being an RSPB Welcome Desk volunteer means that I'm actually at my local reserve (in my case that's Old Moor in the Dearne Valley) more frequently than I might otherwise be. I've committed to standing at the entrance to the reserve and talking to our visitors for a set number of days per week, and I love it. As a friend of mine once said, “You get to pretend that you're presenting 'Springwatch', talking all the time about what people could see in the next hour or so”. That's not a bad analogy really, but I hope he meant that I'm Chris or the much-missed Martin. I'm not pretending to be Michaela for anyone.

One of the best things about being a volunteer is an obvious one; I'm regularly on site, probably more often than I was when I was coming to the site as a birdwatcher like so many others. As I'm now in attendance more frequently then I get to see more than I used to. That stands to reason. At the moment the highlight is probably that I regularly hear Bitterns booming, even from my post at the Welcome Shed. Their strange sound does indeed carry that far and much further in perfect conditions.

And just by being on site I get to see so many things that (as I'm fond of telling my customers) I wouldn't see if I'd stayed at home watching 'Bargain Hunt'. For example, this week I witnessed a natural event that happens several times a day for the bird in question but one that I'd never seen quite so closely and intimately before. I got to see a Sparrowhawk hunting from just a few feet away.

Those of you who are familiar with the Shed in Old Moor's entrance courtyard will know that there is a gravel path to the side of it which forms the entrance to the actual reserve. This is the only way in and out of Old Moor itself. It was quite late in the day and the Courtyard was empty of people. The sun was just starting to set over the office building to my right and I had just thrown a handful of seed on to this path, just a couple of feet to my left. The main recipient of this was a handsome male Blackbird who was making the most of my yummy scatterings, stuffing his beak with it before any other small bird could get in on the act. Delighted birdy, delighted Shauny, but unbeknown to either of us there was a third party in this little scene, sitting off in the stage right wings, metaphorically twirling her waxed moustache as she prepared to play the part of the villain.

As the Blackbird continued with his apparently free lunch and I continued with my smiley appreciation, the Sparrowhawk launched. Straight out of the sun she came, down like a great grey bullet. I watched open-mouthed as she streaked within mere inches of me, legs outstretched and talons open, focused on one thing and one thing alone – the plump and tasty Blackbird. Her prey saw her at the last second and, astoundingly and completely beyond my expectation, deftly sidestepped like a bullfighter whisking his cape away with aplomb. Ole! (You'll have to put your own accent on the 'e' there because I can't work out how to adjust the fonts on my laptop). The plucky Blackbird launched into the air with an indignant clattering as his would-be-assassin hit the gravel with a disappointed thud.

The healthy Blackbird never looked back as he disappeared into the thickest undergrowth he could find. The Sparrowhawk however had put a lot of energy into that swoop and needed a moment to rest. She hopped up onto our “sorry, no dogs allowed on the reserve” sign (well-behaved and accompanied canine guests are very welcome in the courtyard area) where she sat, regaining her breath and her composure. If you've ever seen a female Sparrowhawk up close you'll know that they look perpetually angry and annoyed. This one most definitely did. Her attack was so far off target that she'd not only let herself down, she'd let her family and her entire species down, and she knew it. Just before she took off to have another go at another bird in another location she looked me straight in the eye for a second. It was a look that said, “ I know. It was terrible. I'm embarrassed”. More than that, that brief eye contact said one more thing; “If this story ends up in a blog, I'm coming out of the sun for you next”.

This kind of mini-adventure happens once in a lifetime, yet every day at Old Moor, our other reserves and wherever nature retains the smallest toehold in man's world, and our wonderful volunteers have more chance of seeing them than most just by being on site. Would you fancy joining us as one of our team of volunteers?

We need more people to join us, for as many hours per week or month as you can give, doing whatever it is that you're particularly skilled at. We have volunteers doing so many things on our reserves from Welcoming visitors (like I do) to gardening, admin to catering, working in our shop to sitting in hides talking to guests about the birds that are visible from them. There are many other roles available. Could you fill one of them? All we can offer is warm clothing and coffee in return but the knowledge that you're doing something positive is an excellent reward in itself. Add to that the fact that you'll be doing whatever it is that you love, you're not stuck in the house, you're interacting with as many (or few) people as you wish, you're doing something worthwhile to your community and contributing towards the greatest wildlife charity in the country. People ask me why I volunteer? All of the above. If volunteer working for the RSPB sounds like it's for you, give us a call or better still, visit us at the Old Moor Welcome Shed. We'd be happy to have you as part of the team.

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - SCHRODINGER'S OTTER

2023-03-02T13:02:00Z

SCHRODINGER'S OTTER

I'm in danger of going all philosophical this week. Let's start with a simple question and take it from there...

If there's an otter (or more) on the RSPB Old Moor reserve but nobody ever sees it, does it really exist? This theoretical query became reality for me at the Old Moor Welcome Shed this week.

We've known that Otters have been visiting the reserve for well over a year now. Last April we had so much proof that we sent out a press release about it and I even wrote a blog discussing the sightings. Click here if you want a reminder of it. The most important thing to note is that almost all of this evidence was captured on our camera traps which are placed in areas of the reserve that the public don't visit. Most of our staff and volunteers don't even know the precise location of these cameras. Sightings with the human eye have been very, very rare and always at some ridiculous hour of silly o'clock.

This week, one of our more enthusiastic staff updated the Sightings Board that's placed on the side of the Welcome Shed. You may have seen it. It should be the second place you go to on the reserve (after talking to me or one of the other Welcome volunteers). They wrote it in HUGE letters and put a big, multicoloured starry ring around it. “OTTERS” it screamed, for once again we had captured night-vision images of them on the reserve. It hit a rightfully celebratory tone but subtle, it was not.

Within half an hour of opening I'd removed it. During that thirty minute period, ever single visitor asked me, “Where do I go to see the otters?”, “Are they visible during the day?”, and “How many are there?”, as if seeing any fewer than a dozen would be classed as disappointing. I can't blame these guests, I'd probably have asked the same questions if our roles were reversed, but it became obvious very quickly that I was going to spend most of my day explaining that people would not be able to see any otters and we were simply celebrating the fact that they are on the reserve, rather than fuelling guests' delight and expectations at the natural wonders that they actually might observe on their visit.

So what should we write on our Sightings Board? I'm often asked, “How accurate is it? How often is it updated? Will I really be able to see any/everything listed?” My reply is usually somewhere along the following lines – not that I have a script or anything but being asked the same questions time and time again results in me providing a rather repetitive answer... “Everything on the Sightings Board has been seen in the last couple of days. They're all valid sightings, not just what's been seen in the last week or month, nor is it our reserve's 'Greatest Hits'. You have a chance of seeing any of these birds and other creatures during your visit today but you must remember that it's just that; a chance. As we all know, some chances are bigger than others.” And of all the creatures that are to be seen on the Old Moor reserve, you have by far the least chance of all of being an Otter spotter. In fact I'd say you have more chance of seeing Bittern, Marsh Harrier and Bearded Tit all within the same visit. Wouldn't that be something? It has happened, more than once, but it's a rare occurrence. Good luck to you.

At this time of year the birds are moving about more than they have been over the winter. For example, you may know that we had some Avocets drop in last week after an exhausting migration flight. I immediately added them to the Sightings Board and told visitors where they could be found. These exhausted birds fell asleep as soon as they hit our lagoon and, after a little rest, fed and preened for a while. Then they took off again. Were they just out exploring our Dearne Valley and might they return after a look around, or had we been the equivalent of a motorway service station, just a waypoint to have a little nap and a bite to eat before continuing their journey? The truth is that, at the time, we had no way of knowing so we kept a note of them on the Sightings Board (because they were after all a recent sighting) for a few days before we felt sure they weren't coming back. That's when we removed it. But those who saw them were delighted and best of all, we'd provided that all-important rest stop for these lovely birds, just like we'll hopefully provide a breeding ground for others of their species later in the year.

Have a look at the current whiteboard. A photo of it should accompany this post. You may or may not see some, all or none of the birds listed on it. The same applies to all of us who wear the blue RSPB colours. We don't have to regularly spot every bird, animal or plant to celebrate their survival. Of course it would be wonderful if we and every visitor saw every creature that we wanted to, but the knowledge that they have survived another season and we have provided food and security for them – however temporarily – fulfils the primary remit for here and all our other reserves. We've Given Nature a Home.

But how good would it be if the Otters would come out and display for us, if only just the once? Maybe if we wish real hard...

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - WHERE HAVE ALL THE WADERS GONE?

2023-02-23T12:24:00Z

WHERE HAVE ALL THE WADERS GONE?

The RSPB handbook is a free gift given to all members when they join the organisation. The book tells you details of each RSPB site around the country and what birds you might see when you visit. Really old copies said, under the section about Old Moor and the Dearne Valley, that one of our regular highlights was up to 10,000 Golden Plover that would visit each year.

That was then. This year we've had the tiniest fraction of those numbers, a hundred birds or so at most. And it's not just the Goldies. Every migratory wading species has been conspicuous by its absence from our valley this Autumn and Winter. We've had some Sandpipers, but they've been here in their ones and twos. Same for the Red and Greenshanks that we would previously have expected to see quite a few of. And the Ringed Plovers and their Little Ringed cousins have been almost completely absent this year as well. A couple of decades ago I learned to tell the difference between these two delightful birds here, spotting both species in reasonable numbers at Old Moor, each year. Not any more. A report published in 2021 listed 67 bird species on the 'Red List' – the species whose populations are declining the fastest. Of those 67, nine were waders including such formerly common birds as Ringed Plover, Curlew, Ruff and Dunlin. Those findings are certainly reflected in our sightings in the Dearne Valley.

So what's happened? Well sadly there's not a single, simple answer. It's a combination of things, mostly (and not surprisingly) caused by the way mankind runs the world.

Agricultural intensification has removed the large pastures of damp grassland that these wading birds need to live in and find food. Wetlands have been drained for more intensive grazing land. More 'efficient' ways of producing hay and silage have also meant that there are fewer wetlands overall. No modern farmer wants a field that's damp or flooded for part of each year, in the UK or anywhere else. This is a global change that's affecting these kind of birds worldwide. And while farmers are draining their damper fields, many of the natural wetlands that remain are under threat from the weather. Conversely, this is due to them becoming flooded regularly because of our increased annual rainfall caused by climate change.

Happily we provide this kind of wetland habitat at Old Moor and several other RSPB sites around the country but the sad truth is that there is no longer the massive network of farmland nationwide that there was in decades past. That's why we're providing as many Homes For Nature as we can. Thanks for helping us.

But we can only house these birds if they come, and it seems that fewer waders are flying over to our shores each year. Once again, climate change is a major contributing factor to this. Imagine you're a Redshank living in Iceland. You spend your summers there each year until the temperature drops below a certain point, several degrees below zero. That's your trigger, that's what will make you take off on the long flight to Britain where it's approximately the same temperature in Winter as an Icelandic Summer. So you wait for the trigger temperature and you wait and... and suddenly it's Spring. The temperature in Iceland never fell below the trigger point for long enough that you needed to get away from it so you stayed. And why wouldn't you? That 900 mile journey is brutal on little wings and many don't survive it. Why take the risk if you don't need to? Far better to stay in one place all year round if you can, so that's what the Redshanks have started doing.

This non-migration is happening the other way around too. Older readers will have noticed that the average British Winter is nowhere near as cold and snowy as it was when we were kids. The birds have recognised this too. For example, far more Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps are staying here in Britain all year round as our Winters aren't too harsh for them to survive any more. We don't have the long months of knee-deep snow and sub-zero winds so they no longer need to travel to warmer places such as the Mediterranean or North-West Africa to stay alive. It's warm enough here for them to stay alive. Again, why would they make that long trip when they don't need to spend all that energy? Life's hard enough for a little songbird as it is.

So keep a look out for what's on the reserve at the moment. Some of them may not be around forever.

View From The Shed by Volunteer Shaun - GOING A BIT OFF PISTE

2023-02-16T21:58:00Z

GOING A BIT OFF PISTE

Normally my basic ideas for one of these blogs starts with some oblique reference to a bird that has been seen in my local Dearne Valley patch this week. Then my thoughts meander wherever they will for a bit and I finally sit down to the work of bashing that mess of ideas into something that I hope is vaguely entertaining, informative and somewhere under a thousand words.

This week is different. I haven't been here so in truth I have no idea what has been spotted back at home. I've been on my jollies. I'm a child of the sixties so for most of my childhood memories of winters past feature snow, and lots of it. Fast forward to the current century and the amount of snow that we see in my part of England over the darkest and coldest months of the year has declined dramatically. My enjoyment of it hasn't diminished at all though, so every few years or so I take a holiday to someplace that there's a better chance of seeing plenty of the white stuff. Norway perhaps or Canada. This year's lucky destination was Bavaria, in the German bit right up against the Czech border. That's where I was last week and yes, we did get snow. About two metres of it in some places. I was in Old Man Volunteer Heaven.

Of course me being me I took my binoculars along on the trip. It was a family holiday but it would be daft not to take in a spot of birdwatching while I was there. Naturally, as the wilds of Bavaria are very different to the wilds of Barnsley where I live, I expected to see a host of very different birds. The place where I was based was technically an Alpine region so I was looking forward to seeing Alpine Chough, Alpine Accentor and Brambling, all relatively common birds around those parts. I even made the mistake of telling lots of visitors to Old Moor that these were the birds that I was looking for.

You can guess what's coming. I might go away from home but my normal rules of birding still apply.

Travel in hope.
Have a wish-list but don't really expect to see any particular bird.
Take delight in every creature that you see.

So of course, on my trip through some absolutely magnificent natural scenery I saw not a single one of the birds that I thought would be complete shoe-ins for the region. I missed out on every one of my target species that I'd told people I was looking for. Nor did I see a Spotted Nutcracker or a Crane, both potential ticks on my journey. Every goose that braved the sub-zero temperatures was either Canadian or Greylag. Every duck was a Mallard or a Tufty. The most exotic 'small brown job' that I spotted was a Tree Sparrow. And even though I had all the snow that even I could want, there wasn't a Bunting performing even a single bunt among it. The most common birds that I found were Buzzards, hundreds of them. It seemed that every garden had its own pet one hanging around, waiting to say, 'Guten Tag' to tourists like me.

Was I disappointed? Yes, a little. All of the birds that I missed out on would have been great spots. But nature has a habit of taking from you with one hand and giving to you with the other. How could I be too downhearted when the journey that hid all those 'expected' birds from me delivered a magnificent flock of Crossbills at eye-level when I was high up on a tree-top canopy forest wooden walkway platform thingy (a more technical description of it can be found here)? Or a pair of White Storks picking their way delicately through a flooded field? Or even a magnificent Osprey looking down into a lake as we thundered past him on the Autobahn? I'm pretty sure that Kraftwerk didn't have that gorgeous but deadly creature in mind when they penned their magnum opus. Maybe they should have. So I didn't see what I wanted to but I saw some glorious birds that I wouldn't have seen at home and I had a simply marvellous time in a totally different environment. Isn't that the whole point of travel?

For those of you keeping score, that Osprey means that I've seen 84 bird species in the first ten percent of this calendar year. That's not a massive amount by some people's standards but it's a reasonable haul by mine. Maybe this year I'll finally complete the mythical #My200BirdYear challenge? Perhaps, perhaps not. It'd be a nice achievement but it's much more important to enjoy the birds that I see and make sure that there's a home for them in the future.

I'm stalled at 25 species on the Birda RSPB Winter Waders and Waterfowl Challenge. It finishes at the end of February but I'm still hoping to see a few more before then. Maybe there's something new for me to spot on this week's sightings board?

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - OLD MOOR'S BOOM BOX

2023-02-09T10:05:00Z

OLD MOOR'S BOOM BOX

It was certainly a date for my diary. February the second, a momentous date if only for one reason: this was the earliest day of the year that I've ever heard a BITTERN booming at the RSPB Dearne Valley area.

It was about two weeks earlier than expected and it was actually a bit rubbish. Technically it wasn't a full-blown 'boom', the kind that says, 'Hey ladies, I'm here, I'm available and any other male Bitterns better scarper pretty sharpish because I'm the best there is', but it was good enough for me. It was a Bittern clearing his throat, running through his scales and arpeggios and generally warming up before the performance proper. It wasn't yet the sound of the loudest bird in Britain, a noise that can carry four kilometres on a good day, but it was definitely the call of a male Bittern and it was coming from Old Moor's reedbeds. I'm not complaining.

Bitterns are one of the RSPB's success stories. Centuries ago they were plentiful because Britain required lots of reedbeds. We needed these reeds to stuff our mattresses, thatch our roofs and generally keep us warm and dry. These days we have Welsh slate to keep the rain off and 15 tog duvets to keep the heat in. We have no need whatsoever for reedbeds and so we've systematically drained them and built houses and shopping centres where they used to be. Seeing as the Bittern has no other suitable habitat they did the only thing available. They died, almost to the point of extinction in the UK. The bird that had made our land its home since (at least) Neolithic times was almost gone. To put that into context, Bitterns lived happily alongside Mastodons, Sabre Toothed Tigers and Stone Age Man but the requirements of modern man had nearly wiped them out.

Fast forward a bit. The RSPB decided to do something about this situation and, long story short, there are now definite hopes that these unusual birds might survive long term. We nearly wiped them out but we have realised our mistakes and rectified things before it was too late. That's at least in part due to your support with your membership and other funding. You know I like to celebrate these victories. Give yourself a pat on the back for being part of it. Thank you.

Many of the visitors who arrive at my Welcome Shed come with the goal of seeing a Bittern, many for the first time. They want to see that dumpy brown heron either flapping through the air like a carrier bag in a breeze or standing straight upright like a sentry, swaying with the reeds and pretending to be invisible. I always wish the birdwatchers good luck as I know that the chances of seeing a Bittern is slim. There's a lot of reedbed out there and they aren't the biggest of birds. And even if they're standing right in front of you, you still aren't guaranteed to see them. They're masters of camouflage. Believe me. I've been the guy whispering, “Where? Where?”, while my fellow birders point to a spot about twenty feet away. I never did see that particular bird but I've been lucky enough to see many others, usually as they arc over the reeds for about ten meters before dropping back down again with hardly a rustle.

The Bitterns will be making their 'proper' trademark mating call within the next few weeks and the traditional way of describing it is like someone blowing over the top of a glass bottle. It's a deep, resonant and mournful sound that once heard is never forgotten. If they do it, you should hear it from anywhere on the reserve. It's a weird but magnificent sound, so utterly unlike any other natural noise that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle included a description of it in his Sherlock Holmes novel, 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' for added spooky effect on the misty moors.

If our Bitterns are practising their boom, that means that they're preparing to mate. That will in turn hopefully lead to chicks (that's how it usually works – ask a grown up for further details) and that will mean more visibility to visitors as the parents make flights to bring food into the nest several times a day – sometimes even several times an hour. This will be towards late spring and that's most definitely the easiest time of year to see these charismatic but secretive birds. But don't expect to get close as we will probably be closing our reedbed path to protect them and the Marsh Harriers that also breed in that area. You'll be able to get great views of both species from other parts of the reserve throughout the spring and summer though. Just please bring some binoculars.

Regular readers will know that I really like old names that birds were known by in days before even I was born. Well the Bittern was referred to by some excellent titles, many of them relating to the noise it makes. So, can you imagine telling your birding friends that you'd seen a...

Bitter Bum,
Boomer,
Boom Bird,
Bog Drum,
Bull of the Marsh.

Most of these relate to that stunning sound that Bittern's make. There are many regional variations on the above but the word 'Bittern' itself probably comes from an ancient French word meaning, 'to make a booming noise'.

That last name, Bull of the Marsh, comes from the bird's Latin name, 'Botaurus Stellaris'. This literally translates as 'starry bull'. The “bull” bit obviously comes from its bellowing call while the “starry” part of its name relates to the speckled pattern on its breast.

Right, that's all the serious bits out of the way, lets get a bit daft for a moment with my favourite Bittern joke.

What do you get if you cross a Bittern with a blue cartoon hedgehog?
A Sonic Boom !!!!

Sorry about that. You can store it away in preparation for next year's Christmas Crackers.

Anyhow, please come and see us at Old Moor. I can't promise that you'll see (or even hear) a Bittern, but you've got a good chance of seeing some of the birds from our recent sighting list...

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - BEYOND OLD MOOR

2023-02-02T10:15:00Z

BEYOND OLD MOOR

Things have been fairly static here at RSPB Old Moor recently. Unless some mega-rare birds have turned up between the time of writing and you reading this, the number of species on the reserve hasn't really changed much since we unwrapped our Christmas presents. There's still plenty to see and do here but some people who visit several times each week could possibly have seen all the birds that are to be seen, many times. Perhaps it's time then that I reminded you of the other RSPB sites here in our lovely Dearne Valley.

My directional skills are notoriously bad (as my wife will tell you) but even I can navigate a left turn out of the Old Moor car park and along the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT). A short walk along Warbler Way will bring you to a hide with cut-out viewing windows shaped like Cormorants. This looks directly over the tiny RSPB site of Bolton Ings.

Bolton Ings is part of the same watercourse as the Old Moor site so the birds (being ignorant of fences and other man-made ground-based boundaries) have a tendency to spill over between the two. It's not uncommon for an individual to spend its day switching between Bolton Ings and Old Moor's Wath Ings pool, much to the annoyance of waiting birders. Many of us have been looking forlornly around at one site when it's enjoying its best life at the other. So we desperately toddle off along the TPT, only to find that it's just flown to the very spot we've just left. I've been victim of this dirty trick several times myself. It can be incredibly frustrating but what can you do? That's nature. And anyway, there's always something to see at both Old Moor and Bolton Ings. Just make sure that you've got some decent optics with you if you go to the smaller site; the birds there can be quite a distance away.

Follow the TPT from Old Moor's car park in the other direction and you'll come to Gypsy Marsh and, a little further on near the Old Moor Tavern, Wombwell Ings. I'll be honest, Gypsy Marsh is pretty much just a flooded field next to a relatively dry field. There's a small wood at one end and a large roundabout at the other. It's probably the Dearne Valley's least diverse (in terms of birds) site, but it's well worth a visit, especially in summer when the orchids are at their best. It may be a tiny site but it's important for those if nothing else and, as always, you never know what you'll find. I once walked from one end of Gypsy Marsh to the other in about ten minutes without seeing a single bird. Then I turned back and did the same thing in the other direction. I was just about to leave when I noticed a movement in a small bush. Slowly, carefully, I crept forwards and crouched before this small patch of green among the mud and reeds. The bush quivered slightly. So did I. There was definitely something in there. I edged ever closer, like a hunter looking for the perfect shot.

They say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Well in this case two erupting out of the bush were almost worth a pee in the pants. I leapt in shock as a pair of red-legged partridges shot past us and off to safety, making their unmistakable wobbling cry as they took off, almost vertically. I let out a little cry of my own. I'm not saying that it made me jump but if I really had been a hunter I might have shot myself.

Five miles up the Dearne Parkway is Adwick Washlands. Set your satnav for DN5 7FR and let it work its directional magic. With woods, pools, meadows, hedgerows and marshland as well as the River Dearne running along one side of it, this site has many different habitats and a variety of birdlife to match. There's a lookout spot between Adwick's two main bodies of water and there's usually something out of the ordinary to be seen at this delightful little site. A bit of diction instruction for non-locals though – it's pronounced “Addick”. The 'W' is silent, like the 'P' in “Bath”.

At Old Moor we're fairly predictable. We know roughly what birds will be around the reserve at any given time of year. Of course there will always be some anomalies popping in but it's usually pretty much the stuff we expect. But Adwick? That's completely another matter. One day you could see nothing of interest at all, the next you might see a bird so rare and sensitive that we can't even talk about it. Feast, famine and all the metaphorical snacks in-between, Adwick has it all. Or perhaps nothing. You sets your satnav, you takes your chance, but it's certainly a chance worth taking.

Finally we have the old mining pools of Edderthorpe Flash. This site is best accessed from a layby on the A6195. You're going to need some decent binoculars or a telescope as the water is a fair distance from the pathway but it's a jewel of a site. And like all metaphorical jewels it sparkles magnificently when something rare is around. At other times (to torture the metaphor even more) it can be dull and lifeless like an uncut diamond. Isn't nature great?

So next time you talk to me or the other volunteers at Old Moor's Welcome Shed, don't just ask what there is to see on our home site, ask if there has been anything of interest seen at our satellite sites. You might just be surprised. Just don't expect to find a toilet at any of them.

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - THE NAME'S EYE...

2023-01-26T12:32:00Z

THE NAME'S EYE...

I'd like to thank regular readers for sticking with me over the last couple of weeks. The previous two-part View From The Shed was incredibly science heavy and possibly a little hard going. Next week's is going to be a serious one as well so I thought that this time around I might get a little frivolous, if that's OK? I do like a good frivol from time to time.

You have remembered that it's the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend, haven't you? Please make an effort to count the birds you see in just one hour over the weekend. Details of how to submit your sightings can be found at this link. It'd be great if as many of you as possible take part, that way we get a more accurate snapshot of Britain's birds and their population changes. Thank you. But unless you have a particularly large garden complete with a sizeable lake, the chances are that there will be one particular bird missing from your checklist this weekend.

Some birds are named after their distinctive body parts. The Black Necked Grebe is a good example, as it's a grebe which has a black neck. It could have been named after the yellow spiky feathers that fan out behind its eye as well but if they had to make a decision, then the black neck is as good as anything to focus on. Goldcrests and Firecrests both have sticky-up punk Mohican strips on top of their heads that match their descriptive names. They got those spot on. Long Eared Owl? Well that's not quite right but it's a good effort. At least you can see that whoever thought up the name had at least noticed the bits that look like ears. Even if they aren't really ears, they certainly stick out, both physically and metaphorically.

But then there's the bird that's the subject of these week's blog. It's a mid-sized black and white diving duck with one massive facial feature that stands out a mile. Following the above convention it should by rights be named the huge-white-cheek-patch duck. That big white beauty spot is its most obvious identification pointer, by a long way. You won't confuse it with anything else if you spot one. So I can just imagine the guy who went around naming things for future text books taking out his pencil and saying, 'That there duck with the immense white blob on it's cheek hasn't got a name yet. What shall I call it? I know, I'll name it after its tiny, beady, yellow eye (with a black spot in its centre), the eye that you can hardly see because of the huge white area below that completely overshadows it. I'll call it a Goldeneye.'

As you would. And the name stuck, and it became popular. So much so that it has entered popular culture for a reason that's completely non-duck-related whatsoever. Contrary to popular belief, James Bond author Ian Fleming never wrote a novel called 'Goldeneye' or anything of the sort. Yes, most of the early Bond films were based, in title and basic plot line at least, on his novels, but not this one. He did however write something much more important with this title. 'Operation Goldeneye' was a contingency plan developed by Lieutenant Commander Fleming of the Royal Navy's Intelligence Department (as he was then) for how the allied forces would respond if the German forces had invaded Malta during World War II. Thankfully, it never had to be implemented.

Much later, a much richer Fleming relocated to Jamaica and had a large estate built which he named after the operation. Once the film-makers had started running out of his novels to film, they created a brand new storyline for a brand new Bond actor (Pierce Brosnan) and named it after the estate. The GoldenEye of the film is a Russian space satellite weapon that can set of nuclear weapons. Spoiler alert: Bond stops it. He gets the girl too.

After Fleming's death, reggae superstar Bob Marley bough the Goldeneye mansion and grounds but now it's a hotel for the rich and famous. You can hire Fleming's own five-bedroom complex for around $10,000 per night, so if you fancy blowing your kids' inheritance...?

One final Jamaican non-birding fact; Sting wrote “Every Breath You Take” at Fleming's old writing desk at the Goldeneye estate. These blogs are nothing if not diverse. I don't just chuck them together, you know.

But back to the birds. In a few weeks these striking ducks will begin their courtship ritual. In the drake Goldeneye's case this involves throwing his head back dramatically like a petulant teenager attempting self-induced whiplash. Instead of moaning, “life's so unfair!” as the annoying juvenile human might, the duck lets out a bizarre growling chatter while doing the head toss, giving rise to its old folk name, 'Curre' – after the sound it makes. Other people called it 'Rattle Wing' after the clapping noise its wings make on take-off.

Official RSPB figures show that there are only around 200 breeding pairs in Britain, boosted by the arrival of about 21,000 migrants in winter. This is the Common Goldeneye, by the way. There's another variant, the Barrow's Goldeneye. The main difference between the two is that instead of the Common's trademark circular patch, the Barrow's has a more teardrop-shaped white blob under its eye. You won't see those in Britain very often though. To spot one of those you'd have to travel somewhere like Iceland. I'll report back in a few months...

In the meantime, see if you can spot a Common (though not particularly common around here) Goldeneye duck at Old Moor. There have been several on the mere since well before Christmas, usually to the right hand side of the Lookout family hide in the area of the Sand Martin box. Come and try to find one for yourself. I promise, if you see a male in full plumage, you won't mistake it for anything else. Now I just have to hope that they're still on the sightings board by the time you read this!

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - SENSES WORKING OVERTIME (PART 2)

2023-01-19T10:49:00Z

SENSES WORKING OVERTIME (Part Two)

Last week I started looking at how the average birds' senses compared to a humans'. I covered sight, hearing and touch in the last View From the Shed (available to read here if you somehow missed it – where were you?) so it makes sense that this week I examine a bird's other senses and how we can relate them to our own. Sensibly. If you're ready, let's get straight into it, shall we?

Smell

For many birds the sense of smell is simply not much of a requirement. They do have one but it's nowhere near as well developed as our own. True, some birds use smell to locate their prey but these are mostly carrion feeders such as vultures, kites and some gulls. Most of the birds on the British list don't need to smell much of anything as they go about their daily lives.

You and I have about five million sensor receptors in our nose. A dog has between two- and three-hundred million receptors. That means that your pet pooch can smell things 40- to 60-times better than you can. But a common-or-garden songbird? No. It can detect far fewer smells than the average person.

But it's a little more complicated than that and even the best scientists are struggling to explain things fully. With that in mind, you'll understand that my grasp of this is flimsy to say the least but as I understand things, birds can smell fewer distinct smells than humans can, but they are able to smell different things, the things that are most important to them. I can only think that it's like being able to see in infra-red or ultra-violet. They can smell odours that are so far out of our range of experience that we don't even know they exist – because we can't detect them. It's all a bit baffling for the likes of me but I understand enough to know that it's impressive.

Taste

Taste is closely linked to the smell sense. To prove this for yourself, try holding your nose closed and eating something fragrant like, for example, an orange. It'll taste much blander than usual but if you then let go of your nose, you'll get a sudden 'taste' explosion in your mouth. That's smell and taste combined.

For birds, the sense of taste is not massively important. Given the things that some of them eat, that's not too surprising. People have around 10,000 taste buds, mostly in our tongues. Most birds have less than 500, with very few on the surface of their tiny tongues. Most of theirs are placed around the inner walls of their mouths. But just because their ability to taste their food is less developed than our own, that's not to say they have none at all. If you ever get the chance, try to see an owl eating a slug when there's no rodents to be found. One look at the disgust on its face will convince you that yes, birds do have a sense of taste.

Incidentally, here's a little tip for those of you who don't like the neighbourhood squirrels eating the food that you've put out for 'your' birds. Simply throw a hefty handful of chilli or curry powder into the mix. The squirrels absolutely hate the spicy stuff but the birds can't taste it so won't be bothered by it at all. They'll have all the food to themselves. Of course you'll have to live with the fact that Tufty and his family are now going hungry and it's all your fault...

The Sixth Sense?

We're going back to migration for this one. It's 'a well known fact' that migrating birds use some kind of unknown sixth sense to help them navigate when they take those big journeys twice a year. Don't they?

Well scientists now believe that they probably don't, no. They're not really certain on the percentage of importance of the senses but the evidence suggests that migratory birds use their sight to recognise big physical landmarks along their journey, they hear each other calling so that they all stay together on their flights, and they use their sense of touch to feel the earth's magnetic fields. A special chemical in their retinas allows them to see these magnetic fields to a degree as well. They can see polarised light too, which possibly aids in seeing the magnetic lines at dawn and dusk.

It's also thought that they can track the smell of other birds of their own kind that have flown the same path previously. As I mentioned last week, most birds' sense of smell is generally poor, but in this one specific field it's developed well enough. You can just imagine it...

“Are you sure we're going the right way, love?”

“Yes, I can smell your Uncle Stan from here.”

So from all that we can see how a migrating bird doesn't really have a so-called sixth sense at all, it just combines its five conventional senses and uses whatever information it gathers from those. It is able to work out just enough for its migration navigation needs and no more. That's evolution in action. Isn't it brilliant?

Right, that's enough of the two-part biological malarkey. All this sensory overload is making my brain hurt. Next week we're back to the stand-alone blogs, with a piece about a bird that's strangely related to James Bond. Seriously. Clue, it's been seen on the Old Moor reserve almost every day since Christmas. See if it's on the current sighting list...

View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - SENSES WORKING OVERTIME (PART 1)

2023-01-12T10:27:00Z

SENSES WORKING OVERTIME (Part One)

Most humans have five senses. You know them all. Sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste.

Most birds have the same five, and possibly a bit more too but we'll get to that later. But how do their senses compare to ours? While sight is probably our most used sense, which is most important to them? And how important is each sense to each individual species?

Let's look at some birdy examples of the senses in use.

Sight

All birds can see incredibly well, much better than we humans can. For example, not only can they see much further and more clearly than us but every one of them can, to some degree, see into the ultraviolet spectrum range. In effect they can see colours that we can only imagine. You might know that mice have especially leaky bladders. They leave a small trail of urine wherever they go. That might not seem like much of a problem until you learn that their urine glows bright yellow when exposed to UV light, so given that raptors can see in the ultraviolet range it leaves Mr Mouse quite exposed whenever he's been caught short. The hunter can always tell where he's been. And some birds can see to a precision that is, to us, almost unimaginable. For example some raptors can clearly focus upon a small prey animal a mile away. Even someone with as poor sight as me can see where this is going. Evolution hasn't been kind to mice, that's why they breed so freely.

The point of our eye where the cones are at their highest concentration (and therefore the part where the vision is at its most accurate) is called the fovea. Some specialist hunters such as Kingfishers have two or even three distinct fovea, giving them a kind of switchable binocular vision so that they can instantly zoom in more precisely when required. I wish I'd paid more attention during my O level biology lessons so I could understand and explain that a bit better. You'll just have to take my word for it. Kingfishers can see better than me.

Hearing

Your average bird's hearing is also much more sensitive than your average human being's. They can hear much shorter sounds than us and also sounds at a much lower frequency.

For example, we hear a songbird's trill as a rapid fire machine gun burst of notes. Imagine a Skylark, oozing melody as he rises to a mere speck in a clear blue sky. To our ears his song can be so fast that it blurs into a delightful wall of sound, but others of his species will hear each note individually and judge the bird's singing performance accordingly. If an X-Factor singer gets the most votes in the competition they might win a recording contract with Simon Cowell or something similar. The winner of the bird singing contest gets a much greater prize; he gets a mate. Those lady Skylarks are much more picky than an ITV viewer.

A hunting bird's hearing has to be especially good to hear (for example) its victim rustling through the grass. Not only does it have to hear this smallest of sound but it also has to precisely pinpoint the direction that the sound is coming from. That is why an owl's ear holes are offset in their skulls, one slightly higher than the other. This discrepancy means greater accuracy in directional location. Yet again, Mr Mouse's location is discovered. He's not having a good day.

Touch

Obviously birds don't have fingers comparable to our own, so it's not so easy to see how their sense of touch comes into play. They can't grasp, stroke or strike things in the way that we can, but the sense of touch is much more than that. You only have to see how a feeding chicken or duck moves away if another one nudges into it to see that they can feel the contact. That's part of the 'touch' sense. So is judging the amount of pressure required to crack a nut or seed case with their beak. OK, so maybe touch isn't a bird's most used sense but it's certainly there, just possibly not as sensitive or frequently used as a human's.

There are exceptions though. A Nightjar might not be the prettiest of birds but it has a startling set of whiskers around its beak that are mostly missing from other birds you might see in the UK. Think of a cat's whiskers and you're in the right area, just much smaller. They're sensory organs for feeling the flow of air around the bird's face and (particularly) beak. Nobody knows for certain how this is used but scientists are working on it. It's definitely not, as was once believed, for filtering bits of insect into the Nightjar's mouth. That's just a silly idea. Do you need a device around your mouth to help guide the sandwiches in?

Further afield, the New Zealand Kiwi has such a sensitive beak that it can feel around in the soil for insects, earthworms and other tasty delights. It's beak can sense the vibrations of the moving prey creature and feel the contact, knowing when to chow down. Yummy. Slimy and satisfying.

So that's covered sight, hearing and touch, but what about a birds' other senses. Well, it appears that I've run out of room, which means this week's blog is a first. I've never done a two-parter before, but guess what? Come back next week when I'll examine birds' other senses. They might not be what you think.