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NATURE NOTES – HULLAVINGTON MARCH 2005
by
John Greenwood

 

William Wordsworth not only wrote a poem in praise of daffodils, now in all their splendour wherever we look, but also the lesser celandine, one of our earliest wild flowers. Would he be pleased to see celandines in a solid bed all round my daffodil border? Not if he had the job of weeding them out.

Doubtless the violet too has also found poets to celebrate its pale delicacy but why do they flourish in my rose bed? Like celandines they have very tenacious roots which make weeding hard work. Perhaps we are too purist; in a village why shouldn’t such attractive wild flowers share soil with our cultivated plants
 
 

From flowers to birds: why have so few visited the seed and nut containers outside my kitchen window? Of course, blue tits, great tits and greenfinches do appear from time to time but not in the numbers of last year. Sparrows –yes frequently- no shortage of them in Hullavington. I wait in vain to see greater spotted woodpeckers, nuthatches and long-tailed tits, the latter seen in my daughters Chippenham garden a fortnight ago. I’m quite envious

Did you do the January bird watch for the RSPB? My hour-long count was disappointing: hardly any of the fore-mentioned, but four jackdaws, three wood pigeons and TEN collared doves! The latter didn’t appear in the village until about 1970; now they are everywhere, assaulting the ear with their dreary mournful cry

March is a busy month for most birds, especially rooks, in their mini-rookery behind THE STAR and in vast numbers along the Gauze Brook near the railway line. Mingled flights of rooks and jackdaws are quite a feature of the village, as are the large flocks of fieldfares, winter visitors, feeding on berries in hedgerows in the field towards Surrendell

 

‘ The old order changeth, yielding place to new,’ wrote Tennyson. Sadly this applies to pewits and starlings. Long gone are the hundreds of peewits which wintered on the airfield. I saw a solitary bird recently; 30 years ago we found their nests near Surrendell. Wheeling flights of about a thousand starlings were once a thrilling, eventide experience; now you are lucky if you count a hundred.
 

 

At the end of March many treats lie in store: the arrival of swallows, swifts and martins, even perhaps the note of the cuckoo (rarely  heard in recent years). Before ending, how many of you have seen roe deer near the village? I had the happy experience of watching two through field–glasses for a good half hour in a field near Bradfield Wood.

 
My most shattering ornithological event occurred a week ago when a wood-pigeon flew straight through a kitchen window bespattering the room with glass-and survived! Replacement cost £89, not covered on insurance policy