Monthly Archives: January 2021

Lockdown foxes

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After spending so much time in rural and semi-rural areas during of my life, I thought being locked down in Kew would limit my wildlife-watching opportunities. However, I have been pleasantly surprised. The birds have been as plentiful in species as my home in Cheshire; more plentiful in fact, as the habitats are actually more varied with gardens, parkland, lakes and the River Thames providing a variety that I don’t have at home. As I wrote a few blog posts ago, my mammal-watching at home had been pretty poor up until finding badgers coming into my back garden in the autumn. I can’t say that the mammals of Kew have been particularly spectacular but there is one species that has given us almost constant sightings and entertainment throughout the different stages of lockdown – foxes!

I find something particularly exciting about a wild species of dog living amongst us. Our country is so denuded of its nature, particularly its large wild mammals, that knowing that there is one particularly charismatic species wandering around right outside in our streets and gardens brings quite a thrill. I have a bit of a thing for wolves and have travelled abroad to see them, and foxes bring a little bit of that wildness of wolves to our towns and cities, as well as our countryside. They don’t have the majesty of wolves or the power to bring out the most visceral of feelings that their larger cousins do, but they’re now, unfortunately the closest thing to wild wolves we have, and they’re living right here amongst us.

We have seen foxes in both daylight and night time, heard them calling through the darkness and we smell their musky scent often as we walk around the streets for our daily exercise. They are usually oblivious to our presence as we look down from the windows of the second floor flat – even when we’re standing outside on the balcony. One night I whistled out of the window at one as he trotted up the road. He stopped, looked back for a while, and then happily trotted off again on his nightly business. However, not all our sightings are from such distance. I was out running a few days ago and saw a tail disappear into a driveway. As I approached, I came across him standing on the brick paving only a metre of so away, waiting for me to pass, before carrying on way.

I particularly like animals that are active at night, they have dimensions that we don’t, they live at times we prefer to be settled down inside the comfort of our homes, they have that added bit of mystery and are hidden from our view so much of the time. The calls of nocturnal species have always given me a thrill to hear as I lie in bed and the cries of foxes are no different. Sometimes in Kew it’s been just a single far off bark but other times they’ve been right beneath the window, shrieking. There was one late autumn night when an almost painfully high-pitched yelping could be heard in far off streets but it came closer and louder until the fox ran past the flat and onto other streets continuing its noise as it went – took me a while to get back to sleep after jumping up to look out of the window at some silly time in the early morning.

It isn’t just night-time sightings we’ve had. In the early days of the first lockdown I got a surprise when I saw one running up the road in the early afternoon but we have regularly seen them during the daytime and there was one that frequently sat on the grass outside of the flats taking in the early evening summer sun.

Across the road from us, Kew Gardens has been particularly good for foxes over course of the last year. At the height of the first Lockdown we would often walk past and look in through the gates; wishing we could go in. On one evening amble we saw a fox wandering close to the Elizabeth Gate; it turned to look back at us and then, gambling behind it, was a youngster, and off they went, deeper into Gardens amongst the darkening and silence lawns, trees and flowerbeds. They must have enjoyed the lack of people when the gates were closed for so long but perhaps they missed some of the leftover food too.

As soon as we were allowed back in, we went at least a couple of times a week. On one of the first trips, we were there just before closing time and came across a fox in the naturally wooded area. It stood and stared back at us and then disappeared into the undergrowth, waiting for us, and everyone else, to leave him to roam in peace when then gates closed for the day. We also saw another young fox playing in the grass just outside a small group of trees but again, we were soon spotted, and it loped off back into the cover, away from human eyes. In recent visits, as we’ve been walking close to the Thames end of the lake, we’ve seen a fox amongst the visitors in broad daylight, with seemingly little concern about the people around it and often not being spotted it trots past.

There was one particularly memorable sighting, however, just a few weeks ago. We were wandering in the Gardens close to the outside wall when a fox suddenly appeared alongside us busily running around the base of some some bushes. We heard a crow calling and it swooped down to mob the nervous looking animal and it was soon joined by a second. Over a period of a minute or so, they played cat and mouse with each other. The crows calling angrily and flying fast down to the ground, sometimes landing, while the fox either ignored them or prepared to duck and dive its way to avoid being attacked. As a crow landed on the grass, the fox stopped and then ran towards it but only for the crow to be easily launch itself back out of reach. 

We have even started to recognise some of the individuals with a small and pale female seen regularly early in the first Lockdown and more recently fox with a brightly white-tipped tail who likes to walk along garden walls and an impressively large male we’ve named FBF.

It’s common for one of us to call ‘FOX’ across the flat in the evening as we look out of the window and looking out for them is last thing we do before we go to bed; one final bit of wildlife watching before closing the curtains on the day. They have become part of Lockdown life in a way that no other wildlife has, bringing a bit of natural thrill each time we see one.

With only a couple of weeks now until we leave Kew behind and move to rural Northamptonshire, I hope we get as good and as frequent views of foxes at our new home – they have really brightened up our days and nights and brought much needed bursts of nature into our lives over the past few months.

Lockdown at the lowest ebb

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I haven’t resurrected my diary for this third, and hopefully last, in the series of COVID-19 lockdowns. Well, I didn’t for the short second lockdown either, but sometimes I do still feel the need to write something about the experiences.

I always find the post-Christmas period difficult, those dark, cold and bleak months of January and February when festivities are over and the bright days of spring seem a long way off. The dark  mornings and the early arrival of night-time each afternoon, alongside the often cloudy and drizzly weather does little for my sense of wellbeing and over the years, I’ve often been at my lowest at this time. Usually, this has felt like a period to tolerate and get through rather than welcome and embrace. The new year is something to celebrate but for me the positive feelings often evaporate very quickly once the decorations have come down and we all return to our normal weekday lives.

The first lockdown started just a couple of months later in the year than now but our forced isolation was helped by nature; the light was quickly returning to the days, the early spring flowers were out and the weather was exceptional. We were blessed by the bright, sunny and unseasonably warm weather that lasted for months and what felt like almost every day. The second lockdown was much more limited and while the autumn was upon us, the days growing shorter, it was in the run up to Christmas, and the novelty of the coziness of darker evenings was new and comforting. Now, though, those dark nights and poor weather, seem a drag on life and the days until those warmer and brighter days of early spring seem painfully far away.

Some years ago, I wrote a post about life at this time of year, mid-January towards early February, being at its lowest ebb, the coldest weeks of the year and with little sign of the life that nature will one day over the coming months bring back. During this third lockdown, life in general now seems to be at an even lower ebb than usual, making life much more difficult than during the first lockdown that started nearly ten months ago. 

It would be easy to descend into a very dark mood, and in some ways it’s very tempting to my personality to do so. However, with so many bad things happening right now, this would, of course, be the worst thing to allow. I have it relatively easy compared to many; I’m not on the NHS frontline, I’m not a key worker of any sort, I’m not in a high risk group and I don’t have to home school any children. All I have to do is sit tight, work from home, take some daily exercise and wait for this to pass. I also can be massively thankful that my situation changed in the year leading up to the first lockdown; going from living by myself to being in a couple and sharing lockdown together, means that I almost feel we benefited from the situation; life would have been incalculably harder if we had both spent the period alone.

Having said all that, it is still a struggle at times, compared to the other lockdowns and taking positive steps to both accept that and try to make it easier has been making a difference and maybe there’s more that I can do.

I’m missing the countryside more than I did during the other lockdowns, perhaps because it’s harder to see nature when I’m not working; it’s dark both when I start and finish work. However, I have a new desk, in a different position, now overlooking gardens behind my computer screen. This means I can see wildlife throughout the day. This often comes in the form of flocks of winter thrushes, fieldfares and redwings, which spend the day moving from one berry tree to another. There are also the urban foxes, which we see both at night and in the day time, and the ring-necked parakeets which often dominate the other natural sounds in the area.

The odd sunny day also makes a massive difference, at least for a few hours. Today has been lovely and not as cold as of late, so we went for a walk around our local patch – the Royal Botanic Garden is literally across the road. My list of birds is already growing reasonably just on the visits there and on walks along the Thames Path on the other side of the wall. We have also taken to walking at lunchtime, to get some air during daylight hours.

I have also, and perhaps most importantly, tried to change my outlook on this time of year, to embrace it rather than fight it. We have kept some lights up after Christmas, not a tree or a huge amount of decorations, but a few to bring more comfort and brightness into the evenings. I’m also trying to relax more, not over think things, not long too much for times that are yet to come. Whilst exercise is still very important, I’m also not going to push my running too much as part of my routine and perhaps put off some of my goals until we are released from these restrictions

Perhaps the biggest change I want to make, though, is to stop looking at my phone every time there’s a moment of silence – over stimulation at a time when my mind is already full of so many challenges is just adding to the stress and angst. I’ve found Twitter particularly bad for stopping me relax. I’ve sometimes gone from calm to internally raging in a matter of seconds after tapping on the app. The government’s shambolic handling of both Brexit and the pandemic are so often brought instantly into sharp and excruciating focus by those little but hugely impactful, messages of a few words. I’ve ‘muted’ so many words on Twitter to stop the endless battering of painful messages cascading through my phone but that isn’t enough. I’ve now decided to stop picking up my phone at every opportunity and leave it out of reach as much as possible. This should give me more time for more calming activities; reading, writing, looking out of the window and maybe just staring blankly at the wall from time to time. 

Being physically isolated from family, friends and colleagues has made me feel I need to be more digitally connected to the world but, actually, this has just led to more difficulty in coping with this situation we all face. Perhaps writing a blog post about this is slightly odd, but just sitting still, focusing on one thing for a while, and putting thoughts to digital paper, has really helped.

Looking forward to 2021

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Reading my equivalent post for 2020, it is full of hope for many great things to come and I really don’t want to temper that hope too much at the beginning of this year. Whilst we no doubt have many months to come under the cloud of the COVID-19 pandemic and some very difficult news will undoubtedly come, I can’t start 2021 without talking about my positive hopes for the year. 

I have to say that being positive at the moment isn’t the easiest thing to do. I’m in a constant state of disillusionment at present where the country is concerned. I did start to write a few passages here about this but it just makes me angry and disappointed, and I don’t want to turn my blog into a space for unheard political rantings. Instead, I want 2021 to be a year where I refresh my blog and find my nature mojo again, building on my experiences of 2019 rather than 2020. How realistic this is, well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

If all goes well, January, or possibly early February, will see us moving to a new home in the Midlands. We’re buying a house in a village north of Northampton in a lovely area of rolling countryside. After living in South Cheshire for the past 40 years, I’m really looking forward to exploring somewhere new; all the roads, lanes and footpaths, all the best spots for wildlife and views. Being more central in the country, we’re going to be closer to areas which have been out of reach of day trips from Cheshire, so hopefully a few trips to the eastern side of the country and further south.

Depending on what happens with COVID-19, there are the plans for trips that were put on hold in 2020 to take in 2021; I could almost cut and paste this part of last year’s post into here. In June we’re planning to go up to the Outer Hebrides to stay on the Isle of Harris at Luskentyre. At that time of year we’re hoping that the machair will be blooming and we can take a trip out to one or two of the outlying islands, possibly St Kilda or the Shiants.

In July I’ve got my name down for a week back volunteering on RSPB Ramsey Island but whether the island will be open to visitors and volunteers at that time is anyone’s guess. The following month we might have a trip across to Sweden to visit family but also spend some time out in the countryside.

Our biggest plan for the year, and hopefully far enough away that COVID will not interfere with it, is a trip to Zambia for a camping safari in the South Luangwa National Park. After having limited opportunities for wildlife watching in 2020, a chance to go back to Africa for a safari would be very welcome.

Given we are moving to a new house and new area, many of my volunteering activities of recent few years are now, sadly, in the past. Many of the activities I’ve been doing since 2011 including local volunteering with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers, bird surveys for Cheshire Wildlife Trust and British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and osprey nest protection shifts for the Glaslyn Wildlife. However, the move perhaps presents new opportunities to try different volunteering. I hope I can get a new BTO survey site in Northamptonshire and hopefully there may be a local group or two I could volunteer with but I’ll have to do some digging to find out what opportunities there are.

I’m not sure how much of the above is just wishful thinking, given what happened in 2020 and settling into a new home could easily take all of our time for quite a while. However, I’d rather be ambitious and optimistic with plans for 2021 at the start but not be too surprised if I need to change things as time moves on. Anyway, with most of the country in virtual lockdown for the coming weeks, there’s plenty of time to think it all through.