7-2 spring final image amended - rspb.org.uk

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a registered charity: England and Wales no. 207076, Scotland no.SC037654

Inspire

Next trips: Nightingales and nightjars

Volume 7, Issue 2 May 2013

a million

voices for

nature

RSPB Oxford Local Group Newsletter

I would like to thank all of our committee for their

constant help and support over the last 12 months.

We could not manage without you so a really big

heartfelt vote of thanks to you all. I think that the

programme of walks and talks that we have had in

the last nine months have been excellent. I hope

you will find next year’s programme equally exciting.

With our birds at the moment, it is farewell to some

and welcome to others. The summer migrants are

arriving – how lovely to see our first swallows and

hear the first cuckoo of the year. On our committee

we also have new face: Wendy is stepping down

from the role of the talks organiser to be succeeded

by Linda Neal. I know Linda will continue the

excellent work that Wendy has done for so many

seasons. I am pleased that Wendy will continue on

the committee, as will all of our remaining

committee members.

I hope that you all have the chance to get out and

listen to the spring bird song – Otmoor sounds

wonderful at the moment – and that your summer

bird watching is fruitful. When we meet again, in

September, we’ll be looking forward to another

changeover in the birds we see.

Enjoy the summer and happy birding.

RoyRoyRoyRoy Oxford Local Group Leader

Sunday 19 May 2013, 8am

Paxton Pits has been a nature reserve since the

1980s, managed by Huntingdonshire District

Council. Birds were quick to take advantage of

wetland habitats created by gravel extraction; other

birds moved in as scrub and woodland developed.

Oxford Local Group last visited in April 2010 on a

day when songbirds predominated. Most of the

group were hoping to see a nightingale but, despite

the presence of at least four males, they could only

be identified by their

unmistakable song.

There are three guided

trails: through

meadows, overlooking

wooded lakes and

along part of the Ouse

Valley. Around 70

species breed there

regularly, so a tally of

51 species for that day

made it an excellent

trip.

The nature reserve has a blog for recent sightings:

http://paxtonpits.blogspot.co.uk

Sunday 16 June 2013, 7pm

An evening visit to Snelsmore Common provides

an opportunity to take advantage of the long June

twilight. It’s a large heathland site with a rich mix of

habitats: heather and gorse, wet bog and small

trees, surrounded by woodland. It attracts several

species of warbler, including the locally rare wood

warbler. The common is also attractive to tree pipits

and yellowhammers. The mature birch woodland is

home to hole-nesting species such as spotted

flycatchers. As dusk progresses it’s the time to look

out for male woodcocks performing their tree-top

display flight – roding – as this gives one of the few

chances to see these superbly camouflaged birds.

Another twilight specialist is the nightjar, sometimes

only detected by its strange churring call.

It’s a time when biting insects are active, so bring

insect repellent as well as binoculars. If you have

one, why not bring a bat detector along as well to

find out what else is flying over the heath? Nig

htinga

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rspb

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W here has the last year gone? It hardly seems any time ago that I was speaking at

our last AGM and enjoying our “Otmoor Year” talk and here we are again!


Save the tiger

Corvids are not just boring black

birds. They were one of the first bird

groups whose behaviour I noticed –

carrion crows picking up stranded

earthworms in my school’s playground after heavy

rain. Later on, in nearby Sandhills,

it was jackdaws popping up from

neighbours’ chimneys that caught

my eye. They had substituted

chimney pots for hollow trees as

nest sites after householders gave

up coal fires in the 1950s and 60s.

I now live a short distance from a

rookery and take great pleasure in

watching the entire colony take to

the air on blustery days, wheeling

and tumbling seemingly just for the

pleasure of it.

As for ravens, my most likely encounter with one in

childhood would have been on a school trip to the

Tower of London. But this is the corvid species that

has seen the most dramatic change of fortune in

Oxfordshire during my lifetime. In 1992 “Birds of

Oxfordshire”* stated that the last known nesting pair

of ravens in Oxford was shot at their nest on the top

of the Column of Victory in Blenheim Park in 1847. By

the end of the 20th century they had returned, and

probably bred in 1999. In 21st century Oxford, as the

chart indicates, their numbers† rose dramatically.

Records collected for the Bird Atlas 2007-2011

confirmed breeding and that they had a

preference for the Cherwell Valley. Raven

reports to Banbury Ornithological Society

reached 258 in 2011.

While holidaying in the Hebrides, I have enjoyed

watching ravens’ athletic flight displays – folding

wings like stooping peregrines and even flying

upside-down – so I am looking forward to seeing

yet another example of corvid

behaviour in the Oxford

skies near me.

*JW Brucker, AG Gosler, and AR Heryet, (eds) 1992 Birds of

Oxfordshire. Pisces, Newbury †Records from Oxford Ornithological Society’s reports: Birds of

Oxfordshire, for the years shown

Focus on

corvids

Raven A

ndy H

ay (

rspb-im

ages.c

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)

Inspire

Did you ever hunt for bears in your garden as a

child? And when did you last see a tiger there? You

have probably already realised that these are not

questions about large mammals. A lot of moth

caterpillars are hairy but the garden tiger caterpillar

is among the hairiest – as children we knew them

as woolly bears. We know that last year’s wet

weather was catastrophic for butterflies so it

is no surprise to find that it was equally

disastrous for larger

moths. However, a

recent report* from

the organisation,

Butterfly Conservation,

shows that, like some birds,

moths have been showing a

serious decline for many decades.

The garden tiger, on the wing late in the day and at

night during July and August, used to be one of our

commonest large moths and was frequently found

in our gardens as the name suggests. Since 1968

its numbers have declined by a shocking 92%. The

picture of decline extends across many moth

species and is particularly bad in southern Britain

where numbers are down by 40%. Cuckoos could

be affected by these losses. They are partial to the

hairy caterpillars rejected by other birds so the fall in

cuckoo numbers in England may well be mirroring

the loss of moths like the garden tiger.

The RSPB, as we know, cares about all

nature, not just birds. One of its most

effective ways of both

raising awareness

and raising money is

through pin badge

sales and you will

probably have noticed that

nowadays many of the badges

represent species other than

birds. One of the recent additions to

the range is a collection of “bugs”, which includes

the garden tiger. Why not buy a garden tiger badge

and let people know that the RSPB is also looking

after the little things?

*R Fox et al (2013) The State of Britain’s Larger Moths 2013. Butterfly

Conservation and Rothamsted Research, Wareham, Dorset, UK.

www.butterfly-conservation.org


It is not surprising that we humans

connect so closely with birds out of all

wildlife. Mammals are mostly active

after dusk and experience their world

by smell and hearing; insects are too

small; fish and amphibians inhabit alien, watery

environments and plants are too sedentary. But

birds’ lives, like ours, are dominated by sight and

sound and the majority of them are most active

during daylight hours. No wonder then that there

are more amateur birders than plant or bug hunters.

However, an interest in birds is dependent on the

rest of nature. If you visualise nature as a pyramid,

with plants forming the lowest layers, supporting

insects and other invertebrates, then birds will fill

levels right to the top, acting as prey and predators.

Taking an interest in birds can therefore alert us to

problems lower down in the pyramid. Polluted rivers

won’t support plants, invertebrates and fish, so no

ducks, herons or kingfishers. Overuse of pesticides

reduces insect prey and bird numbers fall. On the

other hand, reducing herbicide use, sowing wild

flower field margins and creating beetle banks have

been shown to increase numbers of farmland birds.

Like me, you might only recognise well-known

species of wild flowers and be unable to distinguish

between different pollinators. But you can still tell if

the field where you are walking is good for nature

by listening out for birdsong. A sky lark is as good

as a coalminer’s canary for telling you whether or

not the environment is healthy.

Canaries

in coal

mines

“Birds in a Cage” - a book review by Richard Ebbs

War affects lives in many ways and reading “Birds in

a Cage” by Derek Niemann made me wonder about

its influence on my own interest in birds. One day in

the late 1940s, a black redstart appeared in our

garden and stayed for several days. We lived 50

miles north of blitzed London but I learned later that

these rare birds seemed to thrive on its bomb sites.

Black redstarts were just one of the species studied

by four prisoners of war whose experiences are told

in this enthralling book.

One was Peter Conder who, in 1954 (the year when

I joined) was appointed assistant secretary to the

RSPB. By 1963 he was

Director, making the

changes which took the

organisation from amateur

to professional status. In

the next 12 years

membership rose from

20,000 to 200,000 and he

set up the disciplines of

reserves, education and

development. A major

achievement of this period

was the campaign to ban

the pesticide, DDT.

Interested in ornithology from school days, it was

while a prisoner of war that Conder honed his

observational skills. Here he met three other keen

birders who also made their marks on the

profession after the war. John Buxton wrote a

monograph on the redstart for the New Naturalist

series; John Barrett became warden of Dale Fort

Field Centre in Pembrokeshire and wrote popular

field guides, and George Waterston set up Fair

Isle’s Bird Observatory and was instrumental in the

successful reintroduction of ospreys to Scotland.

Whilst POWs they made meticulous records of birds

in the camps, detailing spring and autumn

migrations, recording breeding, nesting and feeding

habits of redstarts, goldfinches and wrynecks.

Although conditions were not as bad as in the

concentration camps they were daily in danger from

trigger-happy guards. Wandering around the

grounds, peering through perimeter fences whilst

taking notes was a hazardous activity!

Through meticulous research, Derek Niemann has

produced a fascinating account of these men’s lives

and the lasting effects that war had on them and

their families.

Thoroughly recommended.

“Birds in a Cage” is available from the RSPB shop price £20

Skyla

rk C

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all

(rspb-im

ages.c

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)

Volume 7, Issue 2


About us… we speak out for birds and wildlife, tackling the problems that threaten our environment. Nature is amazing - help us keep it that way. www.rspb.org.uk

You might have read

some of my previous

gardening tips. This

time last year, just at

the start of one of

Oxfordshire’s wettest periods on record,

I gave advice on drought resistant

plants. In the last edition of Inspire, as

we started into a prolonged cold spell

that lasted into April, I

recommended flowers to

attract early pollinators. I

therefore think it would be

safer for everyone if I

stopped right now; the

environment has enough

to cope with.

This is, therefore, a plea

for someone else to write

their views and ideas on

gardening which are also

friendly to wildlife. It just

needs three short items a year – maybe

taking the form of a diary or photographs

showing the highlights from your

gardening year. You could even offer

topical tips – you know there is a long

way to go before they would be as bad

as mine!

If, like me you would prefer to see an

end to the use of peat as a horticultural

product, you might be interested to hear

of one unexpected consequence of last

year’s wet weather: peat extraction was

dramatically reduced – the ground was

too wet for heavy machinery. With luck

this will help to concentrate compost

manufacturers’ minds on finding good

alternatives to peat for growing media.

This in turn will reduce emissions of

carbon dioxide released when peat is

extracted and slow down the loss of

peat bogs as a habitat. Maybe that

prolonged wet spell wasn’t all bad.

RSPB Oxford

Local Group

Committee

President

John Wyatt

Group Leader

Roy Grant

Treasurer

Peter Wilkinson

Secretary

Anne Clark

Other committee

members and

volunteers

Wendy Black

Reg Cox

Lyn Ebbs

Charles Merry

Cecelia Merry

Linda Neal

Keith Neale

David Rolfe

Alan Sherman

Please visit our

Group Website

www.rspb.org.uk/

groups/oxford/

If you have comments

about Inspire or would

like to contribute,

please contact the

Editor, Lyn Ebbs Email:

[email protected]

Gardening

contributor

needed

Blackbird in a garden - Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)

Highlights from next season’s programme

Wendy Black and Linda Neal have been

working together to create another

interesting selection of talks for next

season. Our speakers will be taking us

from close at home in the Chilterns to

more exotic locations like Bolivia or the

Okovango Delta.

For those who want to get out and about,

there is a full complement of bird

watching day trips organised by Anne

Clarke and David Rolfe. These take us to

see some of the seasonal birding

highlights in different parts of the country

from Elmley Marshes in the east to

Slimbridge in the west. The furthest north

we go is Tring in Hertfordshire. And our

first trip of the new season takes us to

Portland Bill in the deep south.

More details can be found in our

programme leaflet or you can check our

website for the latest information:

www.rspb.org.uk/groups/oxford/

7-2 spring final image amended - rspb.org.uk

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