Week 50: Bugs & Frogs of a Different Kind

Last Sunday morning, the forecast for the week ahead suggested Monday through to Wednesday morning were going to be glorious. Hard frosts with bright clear skies. Perfect, I thought: Trust land, rendered in dramatic winter light, covered in shimmering shards of frost. I was looking forward to getting back out there.

Sunday evening, as I drove back from Warwick, I suddenly had the most annoying frog in my throat, which all the fishing in the world would not retrieve. Back home, I picked up the exciting news that a Penduline Tit (Remiz pendulinus) had been found at Meadow Lane gravel pit in Bedfordshire. This is a little bird I have wanted to see for a fair old while. In 2013, I was sorely tempted to bribe friend, family or stranger to somehow get down to Stodmarsh in Kent to see one which was wintering in a reed bed there. It was a relief when that bird finally stopped “showing well” and I could stop pining for it.

Anyway, Monday morning, still harbouring my rasping frog and having had only 1 hour’s sleep (for no obvious reason whatsoever), I joined a couple of birding friends for a Trip to the Tit. I figured I could hit Box Moor the following day. The forecast was spot on. Freezing cold, a hard frost but wall-to-wall sunshine. The Penduline Tit rarely settled, moving from one stem of Reedmace to the next, searching for grubs and feeding on the seeds. Views through the telescope were amazing. The sun was behind us and the Tit perfectly lit, its bandit-like markings and colouring irresistibly beautiful. It eventually disappeared into some vegetation and we called it a day, back home in time for lunch.

By this point, I was beginning to wonder if the 1 hour’s sleep, my thumping headache and the frog in my throat were perhaps going to develop into something more sinister. Just in case, I thought I’d better get to the Oak that afternoon and, whilst I was out, I decided I may as well check the small reed bed by Old Fishery Lane for Reedmace. I was fairly sure there wasn’t any but I wanted to be certain.

At Dellfield, the ground was still hard under foot and, even at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, anything that hadn’t been exposed to the sun was still covered in hoar frost. I photographed the Oak and some ice crystals on a fallen stick and hoped that I’d be able to return the following day to make the most of the frozen landscape. Off Old Fishery Lane, on the east side, a Little Egret and the young female Kingfisher were fishing in the narrow channel of the Bulbourne. As I suspected, the pocket-sized reed bed doesn’t contain any Reedmace - it would take a small flock of winged pigs and a minor miracle for a Penduline Tit to tarry here. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that a Water Rail is lurking in there somewhere though...

By now, you’re probably wondering why I’ve mostly been prattling on about a bird in Bedfordshire instead of the wildlife in Box Moor. The thing is, I woke up on Tuesday morning with a temperature of 102 deg F and, the rest of the week, as they say, has been a write off. I've barely left the sofa and the comfort of a duvet, let alone the house! The fever broke yesterday but my head and chest are still full of bugs. Anyway, since you’ve come this far in the tale of an out-of-town Penduline Tit, I should probably include a photograph or two, even if the bird was a little distant.

Penduline Tit (Remiz pendulinus)

Ordinarily, you’d expect this species to be wintering down in Spain or Portugal or over in Greece. Maybe this was a Danish bird that got blown west and didn’t fancy going any further, who knows. Either way, it was a splendid late Christmas present.

In the sequence of heavily cropped photographs below, the bird had found a grub in the seed head and proceeded to pick it up with its claw foot and place it in its beak.

Penduline Tit (Remiz pendulinus)

I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll manage more than just an Oak photograph next week.

All that remains for me to do is to wish any readers a very happy new year and to hope that it includes good health and a fair dose of nature’s wonders.

Week 45: Of Beetles, Digested & Rare

A beautiful Oak at the Brickworks

Monday dawned crisp and bright, following the first real frost of the season. Mid-morning, over at the Brickworks, there were still areas untouched by the warmth of the sun, covered in frost and ice.

SE of Baker's Wood, looking north

Frosty Nettles

Shards of ice over the grass

I squelched my way around the site, coming across a few more species of fungi (including Parrot Waxcap (Hygrocybe psittacina) and Golden Waxcap (Hygrocybe chlorophana)). Green Woodpeckers (Picus viridis) were conspicuous and, as on my last visit, a group of Jays were having a hum-dinger of a fight near the entrance track. On my way round, I could hear a small gathering of Fieldfare “chacking” to one another, which I eventually spotted. Bullfinches called softly and it was lovely when a bright, red male, brilliant in the autumn sunshine, flew over my head.

Golden Waxcap (Hygrocybe chlorophana), cap diameter approx 25mm

Having had owl pellets in my freezer for months, it will probably come as no surprise that this week I had Green Woodpecker poo drying on the radiator. It wasn’t planned, honestly. I spotted a very distinctive dropping whilst walking over Dellfield and, after a little research, discovered it was Green Woodpecker poo and that if I found a dry specimen, I’d be able to see that it was packed full of the remains of ants. Well, not one to be put off by the fact that everything was sopping wet from a day’s rain on Sunday, I returned prepared: I bagged up some prime ‘pecker poo and brought it home to dry out.

Wet ‘pecker poo in situ: 35mm long, 6mm diameter

I am mildly reassured that Chris Packham is a fan of Green Woodpecker poo and wrote, “[p]erhaps my favourite bird poo (and I'm sure many other people's too) is produced by the green woodpecker. Again cylindrical, it can be found on short grassy areas where the birds have been foraging. It is about 6-8mm in diameter and somewhere between 25-35mm in length. Its outer skin is white and the interior, visible at either end, is tan brown and roughly textured, so it can look a bit like a crumpled length of a cigarette.

The real joy of woodpecker poo, however, is picking up a dry length and squashing it in the palm of your hand as this reveals the contents as the bodies of countless ants which the bird had eaten, lots of tiny legs and heads and abdomens. Superb.”

Obviously, once the poo had dried out, I was expecting it to crumble into a mass of minute ant bodies and limbs. In fact, it appeared that this particular ‘pecker had been feasting on a smorgasbord of tiny beetles! If I had more time and patience, it is probably possible to identify a few of them from their remains. There are definitely a variety of Weevil carcasses and I did spy the elytra (outer casing) of a 14-spot Ladybird, which was surprising, given how distasteful they are meant to be to birds. Anyway, feel free to let me know in the comments if you can ID any more of them - I’d be interested to hear.

Dried Green Woodpecker poo, split in two. Diameter 6mm

Closer views of crumbled Green Woodpecker poo (scale in mm)

Whilst we’re on the subject of Beetles, the Trust had some very encouraging news last week from Martin Parr (Conservation Manager at Maple Lodge). Earlier this year, Martin had done some informal survey work at the Trust’s Brickworks and Gadespring Cress Beds sites. At the latter, he'd photographed some Bloody-nosed Beetle larvae but didn’t think too much of it until he read Trevor James’ beetle report in the Hertfordshire Naturalist 2014, which contained the following entry:-

"Timarcha tenebricosa Bloody-nosed Beetle. This conspicuous beetle was found on the towpath at Boxmoor, 12th August 2011 D.Hodges. A welcome record of a species that is strangely rare in our county, although its food plant, Cleavers Galium aparine, could not be more common."

Martin got in touch with Trevor and it transpires that the Box Moor Trust’s Gadespring Cress Beds site has the only known colony of this beetle in Hertfordshire! It’s a fantastic record and, thanks to Martin, the site can now be managed in such a way as to enable this rare Hertfordshire Beetle to continue to thrive. If, like me, you're wondering why it's called Bloody-nosed, the answer is that its defence mechanism is to secrete a blood-red liquid from its mouth which irritates the mouth of mammal predators. So, there we go!

Thank you Martin for sharing your time and expertise with the Trust (and me!) and thanks too for providing the information and photographs.

Bloody-nosed Beetle larva (Timarcha tenebricosa)

Bloody-nosed Beetle larva (Timarcha tenebricosa)

I'll finish with a couple of shots of the Dellfield Oak.

Taken at 14:40 on Monday, just before Dellfield went into complete shadow, as the sun disappeared behind the ridge of Westbrook Hay