RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW… IN MINIATURE
We’ve all seen this kind of grisly scene on television. First the camera calmly focuses on a Pigeon flapping along, happy in his pigeony world and blissfully ignorant of the fact that he won’t make it to the next advert break. Then…
Boom! Suddenly a majestic Peregrine Falcon delivers plummety death from above. Our friendly but dumb Pigeon quite literally didn’t know what had hit him. It’s very quick and very fatal - and (from the Peregrine’s point of view) very, very tasty.
Maybe you’ve been fortunate enough to witness this spectacle for yourself here at RSPB Old Moor or elsewhere? It’s as naturally dramatic as any life and death scenario acted out by lions and zebras on the Serengeti. Or perhaps you’ve seen a Sparrowhawk snatch some unlucky Finch in the blink of an eye? Again, this is a fairly common occurrence here in our Dearne Valley and visitors regularly tell us that they’ve been shocked/amazed/delighted/appalled to observe it (depending on the sensibilities of the observer).
But recently we’ve seen a game of survival played out that is just as swift and just as deadly for one of those involved, only on a much smaller scale. We’ve been visited by a bird that is such a successful hunter that its name celebrates its capabilities. My old dictionaries say that it has formally gone by the names Beam Bird, Chait, Cherry Chopper, Post Bird and Wall Bird, but these days we call it a Spotted Flycatcher.
Why we call it ‘spotted’ is a mystery to me. It’s a fairly drab bird, streaked with brown and grey on the back and a pale grey underneath. It’s not a big bird either, being just about 14cm from crown to toes. And its song isn’t anything to write home about - a relatively quiet, one-note scratchy whistle - but it’s not a bird to draw attention to itself in sound or vision. The thing you’ll notice isn’t the look or noise of this bird; what you’ll remember most is its behaviour.
As the name suggests, this bird eats a lot of flies but I’ve also seen them take butterflies and damselflies on the wing. I even saw a brave individual grab a wasp in flight once. It clasped it by the head and bashed the stingy, poisonous end against a branch until it was safe to swallow. That was very impressive and not something I’d have attempted.
They like open woodland areas (which is why they are usually seen around our children’s playground and Garden Hide areas) where they sit patiently on a comfortable branch until an unsuspecting flying creature approaches. Then they dart out, swiftly grasp the insect in their beak and return to the exact same perch, as if retracted on an elastic band. And they’ll repeat this process as long as flies keep passing their chosen spot.
They migrate over 4,000 miles to the UK from Africa every Summer but they’re usually the very last of our seasonal visitors to show up as they time their arrival for peak bug season. I really hope that this particular individual hangs around from the time of writing to whenever you read this but if not, don’t despair. We get several of them come to use our facilities most years and the chances are that the male bird I have been watching won’t be the last one we see before Autumn arrives and they head back South for the Winter.
When I write a blog about a particular bird species I usually mention how its population numbers have changed during the sixty years of my lifetime and the Spotted Flycatcher’s story is a depressingly familiar one. In fact, it’s one of our most severely declining songbirds over this period. It’s been on the UK red list since 1996 with the population dropping almost 90% during my lifetime. Sadly, changing land usage in their wintering grounds in Africa has meant fewer insects for them to feed on over there. In Britain it’s the same story with increased pesticide leading to a serious decline in their insect prey here too. This fall in available foodstuffs at either end of their yearly migration cycle inevitably means fewer Flycatchers to feed on the remaining insects. We have to reverse this trend, both here and abroad, while we still can. There has been a small increase in the South-West of England in recent years, so perhaps we’re turning a corner? Let’s hope so.
It’s great to see a huge muscular predatory mammal leap majestically on its prey and swiftly dispatch it with its terrifying inbuilt armoury but, let’s be honest, that’s not something that’s going to happen very often in the Badlands of Barnsley. But scale things down a little (or a lot) and you can see a similar thrilling sight here in our Dearne Valley.
Of course the Spotted isn’t the only variety of Flycatcher that we see in the UK. We get the Pied Flycatcher here too, a stunning black and white migrant, along with several others like the Wheatear, Stonechat and Redstart. But there is one bird of the Old World Flycatcher family that I can guarantee you’ll see on a regular basis, both at Old Moor and in your home area. In fact, it’s one of the most common birds in Britain.
Keep an eye out to see if you can spot your local friendly Robin catching flies. They can be just as vicious hunters as any big cat.
See my weekly RSPB Old Moor blog at "View From the Shed". I usually wear a big hat.