Wild Dorset

THE TRULY FANTASTIC FOX

Alex Hennessy, Communications and Marketing Officer, Dorset Wildlife Trust

As you drift off to sleep on a winter’s evening, a sudden piercing screech might wake you with a start. As alarming as it may be, this could well be the sound of one of Britain’s most well-known and widespread wildlife species – the red fox.

It’s likely that you’ve seen red foxes roaming residential streets in the evenings, darting in and out of driveways or even trotting along footpaths with confidence. Foxes are resourceful animals and thrive in many different urban and rural habitats, including towns, cities, woodland and heathland. In fact, they occupy a top spot in the woodland food chain.

Urban foxes can sometimes be found rummaging in bins for scraps to eat, so you may not be surprised to learn that they are unfussy eaters. Their preferred diet consists of birds, some insects such as worms and beetles, frogs and small mammals as well as berries and fruit, but if they can access food scraps in rubbish easily, they will tuck in. Their adaptation to urban environments when needed is just one example of their famous resourcefulness and intelligence at work. Red foxes are known for being cunning and stealthy, a trait which likely helps them to dodge urban and rural dangers such as traffic.

One far less stealthy fox characteristic is their unmistakeable wailing scream. These sounds are made by the female foxes (‘vixens’), while male foxes (‘dogs’) make a sound more akin to a dog barking. The conspicuous noises are most likely to be heard during their mating season in midwinter, however for the most part foxes are quiet and much of their communication is achieved through scent. These might be transmitted using their scent glands or their urine, which foxes use to mark their territory.

The red fox is a social animal, living with family groups in burrow systems called ‘earths’. One family may have more than one of these dens within their territory, and earths are typically home to a dog, a vixen, cubs and some subordinate foxes such as females from previous litters that stay with the family, helping rear cubs.

Fox facts:

• The fox is Dorset’s only wild member of the dog family. • Foxes have a lifespan of two to four years. • Foxes have scent glands on their feet which mark well-used areas so they can find their way more easily at night.

To help support wildlife where you live, join Dorset Wildlife Trust as a member. Visit dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk.

NATIONAL NEST BOX WEEK

14TH - 21ST FEBRUARY Ann Hyland, Dorset Wildlife Trust, Sherborne Committee Member

The British Trust for Ornithology, launched this project in 1997. The BTO is a UK research charity that focuses on understanding birds and tracks the ‘how and why’ bird populations are changing by using scientific methods to achieve their results. It also aims to encourage people to become inspired by birds.

Leading up to 1997 there had been a rapid decrease in natural nesting sites such as tree numbers and abandoned buildings where birds traditionally made their homes - bird numbers were dropping. A plight that continues today for our bird population as woodland and hedgerows are cleared, new houses are built and major new projects like HS2 disrupt the environment.

National Nest Box Week is always held from 14th - 21st February as this is the peak period when many species of birds begin to pair up. Putting up a nest box not only contributes to the conservation of our garden birds, but stimulates an interest in the bird population and participation in such projects as the RSPB Garden Bird Watch – 29th - 31st January 2021. If your magazine arrives in time it will still be possible to join in with this. It probably goes without saying that having put up a bird box in your garden to feed the birds will encourage them to look for a nesting place near a regular source of food. I only have a small garden but last year had birds nesting in two of my three boxes. A couple of days ago I enjoyed a visit from a group of about 8 long tailed tits, one of my favourite birds, and spent the best part of 15 minutes watching them feed and flit around in the early morning sunshine.

Bird boxes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, mostly designed to encourage various species of birds. For instance, sparrows like to nest in a small colony so a box with three entrances and space for three nests encourages them. Last autumn saw a specially designed box go up high on my house to encourage swifts to nest. It was important it went up before the swifts emigrated to warmer climes for the winter as they search the area and identify places where they can nest when they return in the spring. I wait in anticipation!

Of course it is possible to buy a bird box with a camera in it. These link to your phone via wifi or the television in your house, usually by a lead, depending on the sort you buy. It is then possible to watch the birds in the box, chicks hatching and getting ready to fledge.

Since the launch of this project over 6 million boxes

have been put up in gardens throughout the UK. Why not put one up and help take the total to 7 million?

Bird boxes can be obtained at pet shops and garden centres as well as on the internet. Perhaps, your garden birds would like a late Christmas present!

As things are at the moment the Sherborne Group Committee is sadly unable to arrange meetings and field trips. We are hoping this will change over time with the introduction of the vaccination.

Erni/Shutterstock

Long-time contributor and usual writer of this feature, Gillian Constable, is currently unwell and taking a welldeserved break. We wish you well Gillian and look forward to seeing you back in March.

nestboxweek.com rspb.org.uk bto.org dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk

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ACTS OF LOVE

Paula Carnell, Beekeeping Consultant, Writer and Speaker

Traditionally the month of love, February is that time in between Winter and Spring where we all need something positive to focus on. This year quite possibly even more than ever before. In January I followed a friend’s advice and chose a word to guide me through the coming year. I did it last year, but can’t remember, or find, any trace of what word I picked. With the events of 2020 it’s no surprise that my most obvious choice would have included ‘travel’ or ‘freedom’ and so was most likely buried under more appropriate words!

This year I was struggling to find a word. What do I want for this coming year? Freedom and travel of course, but I realise I need to be a little more realistic. Whilst checking bees on a very frosty New Year’s Day, I paused a while on a beautifully situated bench overlooking a misted-over vista towards Cadbury Castle. I figured it was a good spot to close my eyes and meditate on what

would be my perfect word, covering my work with bees and honey whilst also inspiring me to continue thinking of new ways to share the Bee Wisdom. As I sunk into a few moments of silence, the word ‘love’ drifted into my consciousness. I quickly disregarded it thinking ‘that’s not a successful business word’! Deciding that now I was feeling quite chilled, with a damp rear, I should continue with my bee checks and made a mental note to meditate when back in my office.

As I stood up and took one last look at the view, hoping for the sun to break through and reveal a perfect New Year’s Day image, I laughed out loud to see the heart shape of melted frost on the bench! So that had to be a sign, ‘Love’ is my word for the year, and I then spent the walk back through the apiaries thinking how can love work in business. I was reminded that bees work very much with love in mind. Every action they take is for the good of the whole, not just their own colony of bees, but all the neighbouring bees, the plants, trees and their unborn sisters. Even their honey production is a selfless act, providing food for the next generation of bees, many of the foragers will no longer be alive when the honey they’ve produced is consumed in the depths of winter. Even less so if the honey was removed to feed humans!

I then heard about HALO, a concept of ‘Heartfelt, Attachment and Love in Organisations’ as a model for the 21st century sustainable organisation. Looks like the bees had whispered a perfectly ‘on point’ word for 2021! If I hadn’t shared my word I wouldn’t have heard of HALO. What is it about the word ‘Love’ that so many of us find hard to use, we can easily say ‘I LOVE chocolate’, or for that matter ‘bees’, but admitting to loving someone else is often a huge step, so often never stated, despite it being ‘obvious’ that we do love someone. Living through another lockdown, love is even more important and crucial to our health and wellbeing. Knowing we are loved can make us feel invincible, and not alone. Believing that we are not loved can be the cause of so much distress, and often remove the spark of live, or reason for living. Many have lost friends and family members over the past year, some to the famous virus, but most to other causes, some taken too soon, others at ‘their time’, but always leaving behind heartache. It is one thing to miss someone, but the grief is made all the harder when there are things left unsaid, and the most common unsaid word is ‘love’. As we are not able to show love by hand-holding, hugs or even simply being with one another, the pressure to use the ‘L’ word is even greater. Imagine how wonderful the world would be if we did know that we are loved, and if all the actions we take come from a place of love? Loving makes us vulnerable, and the fear of being vulnerable can shrink our world to the extent of questioning our existence. The moment the bees leave the hive they become vulnerable, to pests, heat, rain, wind, being crushed, starving. In this time of winter the bees are tightly clustered, the bees on the outside gently vibrating their wing muscles to generate the vital warmth needed to keep the queen alive. Some of those bees never touch the queen, yet they risk their lives for her. All the bees take turns to be on the outside of the cluster as the chilling from being there can kill them. What greater show of love than working together, 10,000 individuals working for the good of their queen and the future bees as yet unborn? Their love is unconditional, many bees will die, they will all die eventually. If the honey supply runs low, they share it equally amongst them, starving or surviving together.

My Beekeeping Challenge through January asked ‘Why keep bees?’ Asking others that question prompted me to understand why I still keep bees. I began, like most, on a whim, a feeling that I ‘needed’ bees. I now understand that I had a yearning to understand these mysterious creatures. We can love the bees, but they may not show any love back in return, unlike dogs and cats, a bee is more likely to sting you if you get too close or want affection on your terms. Perhaps we are looking for a return of love, not grateful for the many subtle ways that love can be shown. Sitting with or inspecting a hive can leave you feeling loved, and honoured to have been invited to glimpse into their world. Eating the honey is definitely love on a spoon, and smelling a burning beeswax candle is definitely how love would smell. Learning from the bees, I hope to make the love we celebrate for St Valentines to continue through the year, and maybe the bees will inspire you to show love in your life too, in 2021.

"honey production is a selfless act, providing food for the next generation of bees"