Storm Cocks and Tree Babblers

The majestic, if somewhat out of tune, Storm Cock

No im not referring to some plumbing or tree surgery terminology but to the quaint olde country English names for some of our birds which are sadly now all too often lost amidst out declining dialects. They have sprang to mind this week as the weather has warmed just a little and the first glimmers of spring are showing, the first snow drops have poked the heads above ground and the early birds are starting their pre nuptials.

The storm cock, being one of the first and earliest nesters was out in full cry this week, they nest annually in the tall trees opposite my front door so leaving the drive on the way to work I paused to listen the dulcet tones of the Mistle thrush, not quite as melodic as its cousin the song thrush, in fact darn right out of tune but bird song nonetheless and a welcome change over the drone of traffic.

On the way to work I was mulling over the many names we had as kids for everything we saw and found. As a somewhat feral child I spent many hours outside the parental home rummaging through the fields and hedgerows usually up to some act that was either bordering on the lawful or nowadays totally illegal. As we learnt by our mistakes and experience both first hand or as wisdom passed on by an older boy, it was a life full of knowledge gained first hand. In a world before the Xboxes and 24hr TV our thirst for knowledge was endless and to me that was all things in the natural world. I had to pick it up, sniff it, collect it, keep it and take it home, much to the disgust of my parents.

No Stinker at all the beautiful and much missed starling

Names we had like the storm cock were passed down as folklore but they were often had a special reverence attached to them. The storm cock was a favourite because he would not only sing in a storm, as his name implies but because they were fiercely protective of their nests, so it was a brave boy who scaled the heights to find the Mistle thrushes nest in the fork of a tree. There were many more the ‘scribblyjack’ was so named because of the exquisite markings on what is the yellowhammers egg. Dickie hedgie or hedge spuggie should be familiar with many but they were terms for the Dunnock or hedge sparrow, spuggie being quite a collective name for small brown birds. A skytie was a skylark, a stinker was a starling and a babbler was one of the tits usually the great tit, and always one that brought a snigger to a small boys face, ‘whitearse’ the wheatear.

One of the babblers, a coal tit

Most of these names come from a distant age and are derivatives from either old or middle English, a Germanic origin like most of our dialects. It wasn’t just birds we had names for we would say brock and Bill as a common name for the badger (one of my dogs is still called Brock) and fitch for someone’s ferret, hedgepig for a hedgehog or Charlie or tod for a fox. One of my favourites and one I still use today is the whinny bush, which is the much maligned gorse bush, which has so many things associated with it the whin sill and whin chat are all found around the whinny bushes.

Place names too we shared, whinny hill, the hill with gorse on and lappy island was obviously where lapwings were and foxes wood, the wood where we saw a fox. This is of course not a new thing people have been doing such things for years as is reflected in the many place name the region is rich with.

Beautiful Whinny bushes rich in bird life and bugs

A few that spring to mind are obviously Otterburn, the stream where otters frequent, Todhill, fox hill and one of my favourites Foulmart knowe or a small hillock where polecats live but my favourite of all and a little known one is Bewshaugh, incidentally near Kielder, a low ground by the river where beaver built their dams. So many give us tantalising little clues as to our past fauna and flora and hope to us that wish we may see some reinstated but that’s another storey. All I wish for is that on reflection we don’t loose these names words and phrases they make our language so much more, well interesting and less boring so keep out the clarts and divint get hacky durty filthy black.

The much maligned red fox

Just when you thought it was safe to open the newspaper again, yet another fox storey, this one with a slight comic irony but not one to dwell on as I am getting sick of the Fabulous Mr Fox. This tale comes from deepest Belarus where an inept hunter was shot in the leg by and injured fox that fought back as he attempted the coupé de grace with his rifle butt. What a fool, me thinks he got what he deserved by such flagrant misuse of a firearm, what’s worse it could have been an innocent passer by that the foxes struggles had shot, what price another bullet in Belarus. I cant believe the stupidity of his actions, as a firearm owner I am only glad these incidents are few and far between.

Anyway we move on to the tale of the winter stoat or ermine one of natures near mysteries and as beautiful and animal as you are likely to see.

Stoat in almost complete ermine

I mentioned briefly recently the struggle of the stoat, the rabbit and the well meaning member of public well this time it would appear the stoats of the same location, Druridge bay have donned their winter garb of finest ermine. For those that don’t know that is they have change coat colour to match the surrounding winter landscape, well that’s the theory anyway. Several species do it ptarmigan, mountain hares and Arctic foxes all turn white in the winter. They do it as response to climatic and environmental changes such as temperature and decreasing light levels.

The stoat does it either fully or partially and when fully white it is called ermine and used to adorn the high and mighty. The characteristic difference between stoats and weasels is the black tip to the tail of the stoat, this still remains when in ermine and gives the classic spotty look on pictures of dignities in their ermine stoles.

Stoatly hungry

These past two years have been severe enough over most of the region for me to have seen stoat in ermine several times, this year perhaps because of the early onset of the winter I saw my first one in early December. Last week I saw a grand total of four in three different locations all in broad daylight in bright green backgrounds all hunting rabbits. Excellent to see but I have to wonder how vulnerable they must be to aerial predators, as one I saw was visible to me two fields away.

A good way to get a closer look is to follow this little trick which has rarely let me down. When you see your stoat or weasel for that matter, stop still, crouch down and wait for the little fellow to reappear, as he will invariably do especially if you entice him back out by imitating the squeak of a mouse or the squeal of a frightened rabbit, some thing we all new how to do when we were small boys with a blade of grass. My young son sadly did not, a testament to this modern age of Xboxes and an indoor sedentary life. not that I encourage him to stay in but when no one else goes out what can you do save take him out yourself, which is what I do and where he learned the subtle art of charming a stoat.

A rare day out with gun and son allowed the opportunity to spend quality time passing on some wisdom, not that its really appreciated until they are older, well that was what I was like but we were coming back with a few bunnies from a trip afield, Teesdale to be precise, when hopping along the track towards us was not one but two small stoats, youngsters I guessed. Completely unaware of our presence until my son let out a shriek of delight and they vanished into the undergrowth. Disappointed he turned to me asking what they were, they looked like our ferret and things like that, so I told him to be quiet, to watch and learn.

I bent down and plucked a fat blade of grass, placing it in my hands I blew a banshee like squeal several times, I repeated it at varying tones until there, the grass twitched and a furtive nose appeared and then another, beady little eyes shone from the grass and whiskers tweaked and twitched. Out they slid no more than three feet away, my sons grip intensified around my wrist as one approach so close we could hear it sniffing until it reached my boots where it climbed up looking upward wondering what was all this about, mesmerised it swayed from side to side trying to focus on the giant rabbits. All of us in a trance the second of the two slightly shyer rushed the first and they both erupted into the most amazing display of antics only stoats can do.

Only stoats can have this much fun

We watched them a few minutes longer until they were gone from sight and as we walked back to the car I began to wish I had not showed him how to imitate frightened rabbits, my ears still hurt!!

The tale of the amorous Mr Fox

It could be straight from a Victorian hunting journal not a modern day vets son, not my cup of tea

Well there is hardly a week goes by without another fox storey illuminating the ignorant, last week it was the ‘giant’ fox that allegedly killed a vets 19 yr old tabby cat in Maidstone in Kent for which he had to trap it and destroy the beast let alone get his 7 yr old son photographed next to it. Now Im no whoosss’ when it comes to foxes but there were many things in that storey that just didn’t sit right with me least of which is a vet taking the moral high ground and acting as judge, jury and executioner in presiding over the actions of a wild animal, whether it was guilty or not I think a vet is not best placed to be in that position especially if some of the quotes attributed to him were correct.

I have a bit of a soft spot for the fox it is such a maligned creature in many quarters with so much against it an yet still it survives. I enjoy the weird mating calls and watching the cubs playing in the bluebells in spring but woe betide the fox that gets to interested in my chickens, that would of course be after I had suitably berated myself for not making sure their living quarters were fox proof and secured them in for the night. It is and I do and although we have foxes around I aint lost one in 7 years (oh dear, famous last words).

Mating foxes make some extrordinary noises

However, this week I had a call from someone a bit more local with a very strange tale to tell of the Fantastic Mr Fox. Now there is a lot being said about urban foxes and if they are pests or not why there are so many, are my children safe etc. We don’t have time for most of the nonsense that is spoken but as long as we continue to be as messy a species as we are and continue to spread our towns and cities outwards into the countryside we will always have ‘urban’ foxes.

This tale involves a very amorous fellow who is obviously a bit short sighted too, confused and or desperate. A lady called to say she was concerned that ‘her’ foxes were starving in the cold weather and was her cat at risk and should she do anything about them i.e. feed them. I said I couldn’t stop her if she wanted to but advised that urban foxes are rarely hungry and it can often lead to other issues with other neighbours, the cat can probably look after itself and the council will charge her if she wants it removed. I also said the reason she was seeing and hearing them more was this was the mating season and strange noises are common at this time of the year as the dogs bark and the vixens scream as part of their mating rituals.

‘Oh’ she said, how would I explain the fox chasing her neighbours Jack Russell through the cat flap and into the kitchen if it were not starving? Puzzled, I quizzed further as I was quite intrigued as to why a fox would risk itself against such a mortal enemy as a Jack Russell terrier.

The normal partner of the fox.....his own kind but as the say "any port in a storm"

It turns out the Jack Russell was a bitch and was on heat and that’s what the fox was intent on doing, not eating it but procreating with it. Sounds ludicrous but that’s what was described to me the fox was trying its hardest to molest the very subservient dog much to the disgust of its owner who shooed it out with the broom. It all seems a bit odd as the bulk of the literature suggests that this act is impossible (differences in chromosomes) but there is an unconfirmed female terrier/fox hybrid that was reported and later euthanized (killed), in the UK several years back and British gamekeeper folklore claims that terrier bitches can produce offspring with male foxes.

What do I think, well in the heady throws of the mating ritual, hormones are quite likely to take over the fox equivalent of beer goggles perhaps or may be the terrier was just too vulpluptuous. It was indeed a strange event which prompted the owner to block the cat flap and keep the terrier in doors for the duration but that left us all amused.

Come May there will be more fox cubs to keep me entertained