Monthly Archives: April 2022

Neighbouring wildlife

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We occasionally get asked by our neighbours to feed their cat and chickens while they are away. This weekend after closing the chickens into their coop for the night, we stayed in the paddock for a little while to see what wildlife would turn up.

Our neighbour’s paddock is often used for sheep but we know from signs we have previously seen that there may have a variety of wildlife visiting each night. As we sat with our backs to the hedge, we waited in the cooling evening air for the wildlife to turn up. It didn’t take long for the first to make an appearance; two types of bat flying over our heads hawking for insects along the hedgeline. Shortly afterwards, the sheep started to make quite a lot of noise and they moved up towards the top of the field. Soon afterwards, a fox trotted past us and down the field, probably having been to see if the chickens were still up.

In the distance we could hear a little owl calling in the growing darkness and we eventually saw a brief glimpse of our main target for the night, a badger breaking cover but soon disappearing again before we could get a good look. We eventually had to wander back home but on the way we heard a rustling in the undergrowth and found a hedgehog out for his evening rounds.

That wasn’t the end of the wildlife, however. For two nights I put out my new trail cam to see what else uses the paddock at night. Whilst my trail cam skills haven’t got any better, I did manage to get reasonable images of badgers, a fox and, slightly more surprisingly, a muntjac. This last find must been in the field only moments before I turned up to release the chickens and pick up the camera.

A nice morning for a bird survey

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This morning I got up early a bank holiday Monday to do my first of two dawn visits to my Breeding Bird Survey grid square. It was a sunny and cool spring morning as I set out, having let out our neighbour’s chickens for the day (more of that in my next post).

As mentioned in my previous post, my new survey location is in and around the village of Clipston, just a 15-minute drive from home. I’m glad it is only that distance away as I realised that I had left the survey forms behind as I arrived at the car park. Half an hour later I was setting off on the survey having been home and back again. Setting off across the playing fields, it was a quiet start but bird numbers soon picked up as I entered the sheep fields and made my way up the hill above the village. Still relatively early in the season, there weren’t too many spring migrants to be seen and it was only after I had finished the survey that I saw a swallow, my second of the year.

The first 1km transect finishes in a wide open sheep pasture and I then had to head down towards the hill and into lower fields to start the second transect. This one is a bit more mixed with sheep fields mixed in with the urban fabric of the village itself, including the church yard and then out into more sheep fields. The central sections in the village were pretty hectic with birds on all sides of me but the survey became easier, from a counting perspective, once I was back in the fields. However, my task in the last section of the survey was made impossible by a field full of ewes and lambs. I tried to stick to the footpath but the sheep surrounded me, both young and old, making a racket and making it pretty clear I wasn’t welcome. So I had to make a retreat and finish the survey before I could walk the last 100m or so.

Overall, the birds found at the site were those I would expect to see and hear in the countryside and villages around here but, hopefully, the second visit will provide a few more including a wider range of spring migrants. I’m also hoping the sheep and been moved on to another field by then!