OBSERVATIONS OF A BLUE TIT FAMILY AT WEBBERS MEADOW cont’d/...

She produced eggs quite early but the cold wind held back growth in the oaks, where most of the looper caterpillars come from that form the birds’ main food source. So the eggs were left with a very loose nest around them to keep them cool and retard germination. At night she covered them before departing to her roost, controlling that all-important temperature, given that some nights registered only two or three degrees. So things went along with no brooding until the oak leaves were about a third open. Then she began to brood, staying in the box at night. At this point she increased the density of the nest material to retain more heat.

The male, who up until now had kept a very low profile, to the point where we wondered if something had happened to him, began bringing food to her. She would go out briefly for a stretch, covering the eggs before leaving. In the late afternoon when the sun hit the box she would leave them uncovered and go off for longer.

When the first eggs began hatching, she immediately reduced the nest diameter and wove wool into the top of the sides to make it deeper, presumably to prevent very small chicks from climbing out and getting cold when she was away.

If it is possible for a bird to register incredulity, then the first few times the cock bird saw the offspring he looked dumbstruck! Whether he had never seen anything like it before, we cannot tell, but it seemed a mixture of 'this is what you've given me,' or 'I've never seen anything quite this ugly before!’ Conjecture aside, it is clear he had little idea (or possibly inclination) when it came to dealing with them.

When he brooded they tickled, making him jump about, and when he brought food and the hen bird was out he could not make up his mind which chick to feed, although one got the food in the end. He would jump up to the entrance hole, looking to see if she was around, then down and then up again. Mainly he thrust the offering into her beak and beat a hasty retreat. Very male, you may think!

They are clearly intelligent, conceptualising their actions to some extent and working in harmony together. Can all this be instinct? The female appeared to be learning as she constructed the nest and the male brought in specific materials, not in a haphazard way. Whether they can remember the nest they grew up in, who knows, but they do not have a manual to follow. So over time we have come to admire these little friends. Their investment is an enormous undertaking. Each egg is about one tenth of the female’s body weight and some females lay as many as 16 eggs. In our pair we do not know but guess about 8. The female weighs about the same as one AAA battery. I suspect the number of eggs laid may be linked to food abundance. In the end she reared eight healthy chicks, who presumably benefited from not having any more siblings to share the food. So returning to our male, after a little while he passed his assessment and she allowed him to feed the chicks and carry away faecal sacs, or is the latter the real reason? No, I am sure it is nothing so cynical. At this stage there was still not an abundance of available food. I have watched the male searching the large oak tree, going from branch to branch across the canopy. It took him a while to find a caterpillar. Whether this is the effect of the late spring or a decline in the looper moth numbers is open to question. The rhythmical tail beating I commented on in one online post appears to be her pulse, around 140 - 150 beats per minute. This suggests she felt safe in there. In flight her heartbeat could rise to 500 - 600 beats per minute and may be a contributing factor to the relatively short flights they tend to make. In what is really a very short time the chicks grew feathers. Their size eventually blasted apart the nest and they were clearly pretty uncomfortable, standing on each other and trying to build wing muscles with rapid flapping. Of course this situation provided an incentive to leave. The first six left together leaving behind the two that hatched later. For another day or two they were fed and then the parents stopped. Next morning they were gone too.

Following the suggestion made by Tony, I have emptied out the nest and sterilized the box. Perhaps another brood is possible. We will see.

Richard Pleydell

WOODBURY NEWS is available online and via Facebook and Twitter.

RSPB AYLESBEARE COMMON May 2023

Well, I was poised to write another article full of the usual whatever takes our fancy that we think is useful or interesting (the endless Bank Holidays, the summer return of our nightjars, the unusual case of bright yellow graffiti appearing on our main Aylesbeare Common sign). But I want to devote this instead to the floods caused by the terrific rainfall on Tuesday 9 May because it really was the most incredible event. That morning, we’d just been doing some filming for a BBC Breakfast feature on our smooth snakes reintroduction 14 years ago, but by the end of the day, Newton Poppleford and Tipton St John were on the national BBC news! Our rain gauge had 35mm of rain in two hours but we heard others had far more. We were indoors as the rain began and we were in awe as the thunderstorm struck above us, the hail deafening on the roof and turning our hard surfaces to ponds. Trying to get home to or via Newton Poppleford later that afternoon, we were first aware of the extent of the floods and the damage. We’ve been very moved by it all, some of us personally affected by the flooding, as well as seeing and hearing stories of the wreckage to people’s homes and damage to roads, bridges, hedges and walls. It’s also a personal matter for us because Aylesbeare and Harpford Commons sit above Newton Poppleford, and the Back brook comes off this heathland. What strikes me is how fast this rain fell; and how it just goes to show that landscapes don’t stand much of a chance of preventing flooding with rainfall events like this. It’s the sort of extreme weather we may expect more of with climate change, but it’s very likely that things could have been much worse downstream in the village. The heath will have acted as a big sponge: it’s covered in scrubby shrub and grassland, mires, ponds and bogs and wet heath, adept at holding and absorbing water. As I wandered down the stream that runs through the middle of Harpford common on Wednesday (we spent the day assessing the damage), which is shrouded in wet woodland, I thought to myself, what better flood-alleviating habitat could you look for than this? The meandering, indecisive channels of the river, the water often running several streams at once through dense vegetation and oak, ash and willow, full of mosses, liverworts, dead wood, natural and also (our own) man-made leaky dams. We’ve done a lot of work with the likes of Upstream Thinking, which gives grants and advice on land management in river catchments (eg benefitting water quality and flooding) and water is one of conservationists’ key focuses, particularly on the Otter where we have beavers now.

When it comes to the damage we found on Aylesbeare and Harpford commons, well, it was interesting to see. In some cases, the erosion and evidence was less than expected, in others it was a rather intimidating sight the next day. I went first to our string of five ponds, all in a row and separated by dams. I wondered if the dams might have given way but they were all intact and the channels that run from one to the next were fine. Some of our pebbly tracks are in a bad state now, and any future heavy rain will only make the erosion worse so we’ll have to find a way of restoring the surfaces, while also using local source material (an obligation because it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest). As I wandered along our tarmac track and made my way down to the ford, I found it impassable on foot or by vehicle, the water deep and wide and the whole area turned to ponds and new beaches of pebbles. And we lost both footbridges along here! The one by the ford had slipped its stands and was sitting at a jaunty angle. When I went to the south end of the stream, just before it leaves the common, I found the bridge 2m high, above a beach of pebbles at the edge of a field, maybe 30 feet down, and round a few bends.

By a stroke of good fortune we’d actually booked our friendly local digger driver to do a job for us the day after the storm, and so he was able to restore the ford and the nearby footbridge immediately. But the one at the south end needs a rescue mission first. It forms part of a Devon County Council footpath and for now, you’ll need wellies. We are thinking of everyone in the villages affected and we wish everyone luck on the clear-up job ahead, within homes, communities and also in the council teams who will be repairing our infrastructure. Do get up on the heaths and enjoy the wildlife and scenery if you can. cont’d/...