Heard my first Cuckoo today! In the river side fields we have at Mottisfont, down near the Oakley Oak i heard that distant call that sends us straight back to childhood with the cuckoo poem echoing in my brain:
"In April come i will,
In May i sing all day,
In June i change my tune,
In July i prepare to fly,
In August, away i must"
I love the simplicity of this rhyme and the hint of melancholy - the cuckoo's time here is so short and you realise how fast the summer months fly before the cuckoo heads off again and is not heard on our shores beyond August.
My final words on my last blog post proved to be prophetic –
I had just written about how it could only be a matter of time before male
adders were seen ‘duelling’ – and sure enough, later that day, Matt got the
following photo of two males in combat. Adders
won’t bite each other in a fight but they will twist round each other and rear
up, each trying to get higher than the other and push its opponent down with
its body. I was also lucky enough to see
some duelling action at the weekend, having spotted 2 males slithering around
some vegetation obviously scenting each other and a female and thus looking for
a fight. One of the males slithered out across the open patch I was standing
in, only about 2 inches from my boots, but totally preoccupied with scenting
the female which must have passed that way earlier. Luckily I was downwind of him and so by
keeping stock still I remained undetected and he carried on past me. We then found him and his rival in some
vegetation just further on duelling and chasing each other – well the big male
was chasing the smaller one round and round in a comic style race and in the
centre of it all we spotted 2 females – a reddish beauty and the black one Matt
found weeks earlier – worthy prizes indeed!
After several good attempts, the smaller male got chased off for good
and went to sulk in the sun nearby, whilst the bigger male continued patrolling
the clump of bracken and gorse where the females were hiding. It was like watching a soap opera – but much
more entertaining I’d say!
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| Male adders duelling - the yellowy coloured one on the left won this fight. |
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| A beauty of a grass snake i found under a tin - there was a smaller male with her but he scarpered. Our biggest native snake. |
Meanwhile, adders aside, we have been up to all sorts as
usual. The countryside everywhere is
finally starting to blossom and bloom – this time of year it is always like
every tree and shrub has been holding its breath over the winter – and suddenly
they release it and boom! There is lush
green grass everywhere and the hedgerows are popping with bright green buds and
Blackthorn blossom. Even the bluebells
are well on their way to a Spring spectacular – our site at Curbridge, on the
river Hamble, is always a winner for bluebells as are the Mottisfont estate
woodlands. As you drive into Mottisfont
the fields by the entrance, which were underwater for so long, are finally dry
and green again and the scummy tideline that adorned the bottom of all the
trees has faded away. No one seems to
have told the swans though which are still happily spending most of their time
in those fields, unwilling perhaps to give up their extended kingdom. In the space of a week the butterfly transect
on Stockbridge Down has gone from 6 butterflies to a whopping 48 today –
including my first Green Veined white of the year and an abundance of Orange
tips.
The background soundtrack to this beautiful time of year is bird song. I managed to get this photo of a Black Cap singing in the Duck Grounds – lovely little bird with
the male wearing a shiny black hat and the female wearing a chestnut brown one - and this male was really going for it, trilling away.
Also got a photo of a Long Tailed tit nest tucked away in a gorse bush. These nests are really spectacular as they
are made with cobwebs and lichens, a true masterpiece of architecture.
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| Long Tailed tit nest |
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| Black Cap |
We had a visit last week from a man who first discovered the
Barbastelle bat populations at Mottisfont ten years ago. He has
returned to examine the known bat roosts and find potential for new ones here
at Mottisfont. Our woodlands host a number
of bat species but the Barbastelle are probably the most unique. They require woodland in which to roost and
riverine habitat nearby that they go to feed.
They use woodland rides and hedgerows as corridors to fly from their
woodland haunt, down to the river and wetlands where they feast on insects-
mainly moths. They are one of the rarer
British mammals and there are few known breeding maternity sites in the country–
of which we are privileged to be one.
They tuck themselves away in the cracks of trees or under loose bark so
it is important that there are suitable trees for this purpose; if we were to
fell every dead or dying or storm damaged tree, that would be the end of the
Barbastelle – and many more species as of course trees are micro worlds for
hundreds of different species of invertebrate, flora and larger animals.
Another creature that likes to roost in trees are Barn
Owls. We have several known pairs across
the estate which are monitored by our volunteer bird surveyor Alan Snook – if a
new bird of any species happened to turn up, fly over or drift by Mottisfont,
Alan will be the first to know about it – the man seems omnipotent when it
comes to avian life! He works closely with the Hampshire Ornithological Society
and managed to get hold of some Barn Owl boxes to put up across the estate. Barn owls will roost in buildings (hence the
name) but also in old trees – our Oakley Oak has a Barn owl pair in one of the
limbs. However they can be kicked out by
Jackdaws that tend to take over the whole tree for their nesting colony. By putting up Barn Owl nest boxes you are
providing more suitable roosting sites that the barn owls can discover and use
for nesting. Alan had got us 2 nesting
boxes and 2 roosting boxes, to be used in pairs. Basically the female Barn owl will nest and
lay eggs in the nest box and as she will sit on the eggs continually until they
hatch, she relies on the male to bring her food. However she does not like the male to be in
the nest box with her, so by providing a roost box nearby – like a bachelor pad
– the male has somewhere to hang out and call to his mate, until she requires
him to bring her food or help with the young.
Doubtless there are some human set ups that are very similar.
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| Nesting box on the left and the male's bachelor pad on the right. |
The seasonal warmth has seen another change come in – our sheep flock
are beginning to take some pride in their appearance and shed their winter wool
in favour of their light summer jackets.
Wiltshire Horn sheep are self-shedding so it means you don’t need to
shear them but also means you don’t get a full fleece off of them – they are
more a meat breed. But they have started
doing a fine job of cutting their hair and you can see from this photo of a
young one the difference in their winter and summer wool. The lamb’s neck has got the summer wool
coming through, fine and soft – the rest of its body is still covered in thick,
dreadlocked, matted wool which it will lose as the warm days go on.
Now stop reading my blog and get out there and enjoy the
sun!
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| See the fine summer wool on the neck |
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| Guilty looking sheep acting nonchalant, having just nicked my sandwich! |
