View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGING

THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGING

I hope it doesn't come as a surprise to you when I say that we put the clocks back last weekend. You did remember, didn't you? If not, you missed out on an extra hour's sleep and I suspect you've missed several appointments throughout the week too. Or perhaps you were an hour early for them? I can never work out what the effect of changing them is. I know that we “spring forward and fall back” but whether that means I'm out of step in front of or behind everyone else, I can never fathom. It's beyond me. It's almost as bad as trying to deduce how the clocks change when we fly across several time zones. It seems like it's pure alchemy and the only way you can fully understand it is some ritual involving rolling chicken bones and dancing naked under a full moon. It makes my head hurt, so I just wait until my wife tells me what time it is now.

To the creatures that live on our nature reserve, all of this turning hands forwards and backwards around your clock face matters not one jot. They don't give a stuff about the random titles that we give to parts of the day. 'Morning', 'Noon' and 'twenty-five to seven' are just made-up words and structures as far as they're concerned. What does a Bittern care that it's now 10am when last week it was 11? As long as there are abundant safe reedbeds stocked with plenty of eels and frogs, then he has a happy life.

However one thing that affects everyone, human and animal alike, is that it's getting darker earlier these days. Every evening the sun dips below the horizon just that little bit sooner than it did yesterday. We're also losing a few minutes of light at the start of each day too. It's not much of a hardship for us apart from our annual grumble about having to get up in the dark and it being dark already when we go home, but for the diurnal wild creatures its a much more serious matter. The fewer hours of daylight can literally be a matter of life or death as some of them struggle to find enough food to survive in the few remaining daylight hours. They have to eat as much as they can, as quickly as they can, and then spend the dark, cold hours conserving energy and trying to stay alive through to the next day when the struggle begins anew. For many birds and animals it really is that stark a challenge. They live on the knife-edge, just a few heartbeats away from freezing or starving to death. Obviously the healthiest make it through each night of this deadliest season – otherwise their species wouldn't survive from one year to the next – but the weakest of each kind will perish in the cold nights through lack of fat reserves. It's a thinning of the herd, survival of the fittest at its most brutal. Some may see it as cruel but all is as it should be. The best suited to the local conditions are the ones that make it through the Winter to create a well adapted new generation in the following breeding season. It's a tough time of year and all creatures have to be strong enough to survive it. Otherwise, they ultimately provide food for a predator who has to prove that they, in turn, have what it takes to make it to breeding season.

Yet while the shorter winter hours make for a critical challenge for our prey species, they also provide a spectacular benefit for us human wildlife watchers. It might not become apparent for a few more weeks but when it does, it's a cracker involving some of our most beautiful and popular birds. The Barn Owls that live in the boxes at the back of the reserve will be coming out to feed at the same time of day as they always do – that is, when the light levels are low enough. Fortunately, this is now during the reserve's opening hours rather than long after we've locked the gates and gone home for the night. Keep an eye out for them soaring silently around the land at the back of the reserve where you might also see Marsh Harriers, late in the day when the light is fading. You might just be lucky enough to see one of my favourite natural sights, a Barn Owl hovering for a moment just like a Kestrel before plummeting down onto some poor mammalian meal.

This brings me on to one final thing to note, and it's quite important. While you're out on the reserve looking for the owls and our other delights, please – PLEASE – keep an eye on you timepieces. Watch, phone, sundial; I don't care what you use, just make sure you check it regularly when the shadows are lengthening. Since we changed the clocks from BST to GMT, our reserve at RSPB Old Moor is now operating on our Winter schedule; that's opening at 9-30 and closing at 4pm. Remember that last bit if nothing else. I wouldn't want you to get locked in.