July 2017

Apart from some exceptionally strong winds and a few thunderstorms, June has been its usual flaming self, though still unusually dry.  The birds have been getting on with bringing up the next generation.  A pair of swallows have been nesting in our carport again and as far as we can see are raising at least three chicks. Today I saw the swallows mobbing a magpie that was cowering on a neighbour’s roof.  I don’t know if the magpie had made an attempt to get at the chicks, or if the swallows were just making sure that it didn’t.  Either way, magpies are intelligent and ingenious birds and I wouldn’t be surprised if it found a way up to the nest even though it is tucked high up in a corner of the roof. 

Barn Swallow - Hirundo rustica

Talking of magpies, I read recently of an interesting experiment performed to see how nesting birds reacted to the presence of a stuffed cat compared with a stuffed squirrel and a stuffed rabbit.  This showed that the birds weren’t worried about the squirrel or rabbit but, as expected made a huge fuss about the cat.  One sad result from this research was that in a high percentage of cases where the cat was placed near nests, the nests were predated soon afterwards by magpies or jays that had been alerted to the presence of the nest by the birds attacking the cat.  We do seem to have a plague of hunting cats round us at the moment and though they may have little direct impact on birds by catching a few fledglings (especially when their thoughtful ‘owners’ fit them with bells), they have a much stronger indirect impact by revealing nests to other predators. 

We have had blue tits nesting in a box on the side of the house but we don’t know how many chicks there were as this box is not where we can observe it directly (and they won’t use the box with the camera in it!).  However, we have seen blue tit parents with young fledglings on our feeders, so hopefully we have given them a good start one way or another.   The sparrows have pushed the house martins out of their nests at the front of the house and seem to be raising chicks there.  (It is possible to discourage sparrows from stealing nests like this by hanging a curtain of short chains in front of the nest that the sparrows can’t negotiate, but that needs somebody happier on ladders than I am.)  The house martins have successfully occupied a nest at the back of the house and judging by the mess on the paving below, there is some breeding activity up there, but as yet we haven’t seen any heads poking out.

The only other nest of note is that of the buff-tailed bumblebees that have taken up residence somewhere under our shed.  (We have another in a pile of rubble in the 'untamed' part of the garden.)  We have a large shrub in the garden which is covered in white flowers (species unknown) and the bumblebees love it.  I have seen several fresh queen buff-tailed bumblebees feeding on the shrub and if they are from the nest under the shed then that marks the end of that colony – at least as far as the original queen is concerned.

Despite all these signs of new life, all is not well out there.  I heard recently that the worldwide biomass of insects has reduced by more than 80% in the last 100 years.  Chris Packham on Springwatch said that we have lost 44 million birds since 1970 – yes 1970! – including 51% of farmland birds.  What can we do about it? Grow flowers for pollinators, keep feeding the birds, chuck out the chemicals, and elect greener governments.  Some hope!