Boxing Clever

I often see hares when I'm on my wanderings, I am fortunate the land I have access to is farmed well and many of our Trust reserves either have them present or land adjacent does. They have been in quite a steep decline dropping over 80% over the past one hundred years, largely as a result of changes in agricultural practice. Many farms are now single focus businesses either livestock or cereal/arable farms. Gone are the days of mixed farming where there was a 4 year rotation between livestock and mixed arable.

The brown hare

We have lost somewhere near 150,000 miles of hedgerows in the past 50 years to accommodate larger machinery and high single crop yields, this deprives the hare of food and shelter. Thus the hare has suffered as they prefer a patchwork of year round opportunities to graze on herbs and grasses.

The declines have been felt worst in the west of the country but even in the east and its rich arable lands the declines have been seen where arable practices have excluded agri-environment options.

Replanting hedgerows, not flailing existing ones to an inch of their lives and most importantly leaving field margins definitely improve the hare’s lot.

Top speed 50km/hr, this one is still in second gear it hasnt even bothered to flatten its ears yet

We are coming to the best time of the year to see hares and if you’re fortunate to have hares in your area you can be treated to some barnstorming fun as they get into full on mad March hare mode.

Steeped in folklore the hare most commonly seen in the UK is the brown hare but we also have two other species in the British and Irish isles. The blue or mountain hare found mainly in Scotland but also present in small numbers in the Peak District; we also have the Irish hare which is remarkable in being probably one of the oldest residents of these Isles, being present in the fossil record for up to 60,000 BP.

In Northeast we only have the brown hare although many years ago there were reports of mountain hare in the Cheviot's, I did see one I suspected of being a mountain hare at distance about 15 years ago but I'm really not sure now.


Boxing hares in April

 There are many misconceptions surrounding hares such as seeing boxing hares only in March, their breeding season runs from January throughout to early summer and baby hares, leverets as they are called, can be found anytime during this period.

Sitting still in the stubble

I saw my first hares this past week, about a half a dozen of them sitting around on some left over winter stubble looking like ancient megaliths dotted morosely around in a loose grouping. Every so often there was a burst of energy as the males would chase each other whilst a bout of boxing was from the females trying to beat off their would be suitors. They used to think it was all males that carried out these bouts of pugilism but now it is known to be mainly females that do the boxing, the males just chase each other with the occasional handbags at thirty paces.

When in full flow this can be a breathtaking spectacle as the hair flies and the grunts and hisses of the combatants become quite audible as speeds of up to 50km/hour are reached as they pursue each other.



Now this one is shifting

 The brown hare is not a true native, it was probably introduced with Iron Age farmers as a source of food and sport some 2000 to 3000 years ago, as the ancient woods had given way to pasture and crop systems. It has however certainly been here long enough to enter folklore and language.

The origins of the Easter bunny do not lie in a doe eye rabbit it originates from ancient Celtic beliefs and customs, it was hijacked by early Christians and later generations did away with the goat eyed hare (the devil incarnate) in favour of the fluffy bunny rabbit but its presence in our culture is eternally ingrained in many a place name.

Just to the northwest of Morpeth lie the hamlets of Harelaw and Haredene which are next to Doe Hill Farm. These names all originate from the ancient presence of the hare and today these are still good locations to see hares and a sharp lookout from the car window in those vicinities will often be rewarded with a view of a hare sitting in a field.



The rear end of a departing hare

 Mostly however it is only the rear end of one we see, as it accelerates away from our errant pooches who disturb them from their forms on their walk. It is always of interest as to where and when people see wildlife so if anyone does see a hare or a ‘boxing ring’ let us know, I think they are a good indicator that something is right in that area and all add to our knowledge of species distribution.





The Sap is Starting to Rise

I have just come across several lady bugs stirring from their winter slumber and I was also treated to the first blue bottle buzzing around the kitchen, a definite reminder warmer times are on the way.

Mrs blackbird

Longer days and warmth added together make for a positive burst of sexual activity anywhere but especially noticeable in and around the garden. I don’t know what goes on in the private social circles of the blackbird clan but the ones in my garden are not private about their antics. The blackbirds in my garden seem more reminiscent of the keystone cops but more intent on grievous bodily harm.

We have three males and two females that appear to be vying for favours with each other. One male just sits there, glowering down from the drainpipe, whilst the other four are locked in mortal combat on the lawn. The sap is certainly rising in these individuals as their wrestling bouts occur both day and night. Several times I have nearly fallen over my self as they scuttle beneath my feet in the early morning when I go to let the chickens out. What’s more amusing, it’s the ladies that are doing all the harassing and chasing, something that never happened when I was at school, he says trying to keep a straight face.

It is interesting to watch what happens as two younger males come into the garden, it is not the brooding patriarch on his drainpipe that rushes to defend his damsels in distress but the two females themselves that harass the younger males out of the garden, it is very amusing as they return to the patriarchs side.

Amusing it maybe these romantic follies of the humble blackbird but dark they are not unlike the behaviour of another garden resident, the robin.
These little fellows, so beloved of Christmas cards and chocolate logs are deadly assassins, fiercely territorial they often fight to the death with rivals for territory and mates yet they reside with so much affection in our psyche. Several times I have witnessed the ferocity of their territorial struggles.


Not always as they seem the territorial robin

 On the land I have access to for shooting there are several good copses where robins make their territories singing late into the night near the street lights. They often join you for titbits when were carrying out estate work too but so embroiled can they be in their conflict it can literally spill over into your lap. One fight between rivals recently got so embroiled they ended up in my coffee cup spilling it over making them look like drowned rats They looked very silly sitting there all dishevelled and steaming in the early morning frost but at least they were still alive. I picked one up from my allotment they other day which was being continuously attacked despite being quite dead by another. Such is life in the cut and thrust of avian love triangles.

It’s great to be able to leave work and have most of the journey in daylight as apposed to the short dark days of mid winter, heading up the A1 north to Morpeth I saw a familiar sickle shape in the sky harassing the local pigeons, a peregrine was at large. A week earlier, despondent sitting in my hide behind decoys that had not brought a signal pigeon in I was awoken from my near slumber, by the whoosh of wings. This time it was not a pigeon but the unmistakable slate grey of a beautiful male peregrine. He came in fast along the hedge bank to strafe my decoy pattern only to leave dismayed that they had not arose to flee in panic.


Appologies for the captive portrait and i think this is a Saker hybrid too, but still beautiful

As I watched him circle for a second look he then banked sharply and was joined by a second slightly larger bird, a female. Like members of the red arrows aerobatic team they shrieked in ecstasy as they tumbled through the air streams, sometimes folding their wings in a game of chicken, they would plummet to the ground at astronomical speeds, only to pull up at the very last moment shying in different directions to continue their aerobatics courtship further on.

Oh go on then here's another poetry in motion

Absolutely mesmerising, these are things I have been blessed with, visions we never forget. Some like the curve of a flash sports car, the glamour of a super model but in the world of nature the peregrine has got it all. Reaching speeds verging on the ridiculous they are truly the Aston Martin of the bird world. These two however almost bumbled away harangued by a couple of goldfinches.

Close encounters

Early snow drops and winter aconites the first spring flowers on the woodland floor

Its nearly here! just as you get up in the morning the first glimmerings of spring, the days are lengthening and its light as I drive to work. The first snowdrops have actually been out for a few weeks on the sheltered side of the park wall and the winter aconites are carpeting the old farm house gardens nearby. The first signs of spring even though I had to scrape the ice off the car again this week.

It’s a couple of weeks since the storm cock started singing and now quite a few more birds have joined him, the song thrush and the robins are in full song and the blackbird too added his morning song.

There are several things I really like about this time of the year firstly, of course it is the longer days, it gives me more time to get out and about, it allows me to get down the allotment as well and start growing a few things but it is the expectancy that lies ahead that makes me most excited.

Rise early or stay out late and these might be your rewards

As the days lengthen, winter can still quickly return this week Scotland and the north of the County have been plunged back under heavy snowfall. But that’s what is good about this time of the year, the changeability; those early snowdrops poking through snow always make an evocative image as spring and the march of the seasons start to leave winter behind.

This time of the year also reveals some of the best views in wildlife watching, clear skies and rising temperatures allows some spectacular sun rises and sunsets to occur. When this happens it really pays to be out as anything you do see has that added glow to it.

Take a trip to Solway Firth or similar such as Druridge Bay and there is nothing more spectacular than watching skeins of geese through an orange sunset. As spring advances there are more skeins to see as they start to head north to their winter breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle, line after line of them stretching right across the sky. Truly spectacular sights at the best of times but catch it in the evening glory, a sight never to be forgotten.

Geese in a solway sunset

I have one vision that can beat it though, but one rarely encountered. A few years back I was asked to do a live radio 4 broadcast, the reporter wanted to see otters, I said I’d show him one, he didn’t believe me. I showed him four! Not being too flippant it did actually far out weigh my own expectations even though I was well versed with the habits of those particular otter at the time, nature will always throw you a wrong’un.

At minus 2 outside a thin skin of ice filtered the margins. As the sun rose, a huge tangerine ball, the scene became an unbelievable backdrop to the events that were just about to unfold, everything was enshrined in an orange glow. The commentator enthused about the breaking dawn as I scanned and waited for my otter to appear, appear he did not making think I was about to eat my words. Then just as the sun broke free from the horizon a noise hardly discernable by the human ear made me twitch and freeze.

So still was the dawn that that sound of breaking ice and an exhaled breath made me draw the attention of the reporter to what was approaching. To say there was silence was an understatement a totally speechless reporter stared at not one but four approaching otters glowing gold in the morning light. A mother and three cubs, the cubs still so young they were struggling to break through the ice to keep up with their mother, who constantly called in high pitched whistles to encourage them on. There calls were mutual as they retorted, ‘well slow down’, ‘we can’t keep up’.

As they drew level with us, no more than 10 feet away, the bitch got wind of us and rising out of the water she peered forward with beady eyes as to who or what the silent watchers were. The cubs were happy as it gave them time to catch up but she coughed her warning but the cubs however were being cubs they kept on exploring their watery realm until she had enough and ushered them along. A full 10 minutes of the most breathtaking wildlife encounter I have ever had let alone the speechless reporter. So much for a live report we had to dub it later.

A secret otter encounter at dusk

An encounter never to be forgotten and made all the more special by the light and the early start.

Distribution 'costs'

Young stoats at play

The distribution of our wild creatures is something that is both fascinating and important, without this knowledge we can’t see population trends or their exact locations and therefore we cannot exercise legislation to protect them or their habitats. With this in mind it has been very pleasing over the last week or so to have been involved with several exercises where information gathered will be of benefit to wildlife.

Firstly hot on the heels of the duelling stoats we put out a press release out the other week asking for reports of stoats in ermine across the County as there have been several reported. This has been very successful and I must have enough for a decent fur coat now, no seriously we have received dozens of reports of this beautiful creature from all over the region which is excellent as it it is not a well reported creature, these reports will at least give us an overview of their distribution, so keep them coming the more we get the better.

Anyway enough of this stoat homage what else have we been up to, well when I was a boy the first thing that I really got into was birds, the feathered variety that is. I used to collect eggs, and watch and record them avidly around my garden and neighbourhood. The former now being highly illegal it was nevertheless what you did when I was a boy. I was never really into the collecting bit and eventually grew out of it but the experience of getting close to nature, seeing it and touching it and more importantly recording it never went away. Even when mammals and featherless birds took over my imagination I still recorded what I had seen and what they had been up to, I still to this day carry a policeman style note book everywhere much to the derision of my son who thinks me very sad.

So this week I have been mostly……counting birds. Firstly, I counted them in my garden as part of the RSPB big garden birdwatch and then during the week I have been doing some high tide counts of waders and wildfowl in Druridge Bay. Why? Well I like it and it’s important to know these things and again more importantly is to share these things so that records a freely available to all who need or require them. Know one can the use the excuse, in case of development for instance, that they didn’t know there was a badger sett there or there were great crested newts in that pond or that those fields are the only place certain birds can go to chill out and feed when the tide is high.

A first for my garden, the nuthatch

Records are the basis of conservation without them we would not have many of the special places we have or some of the species we enjoy. I had two new additions to me garden bird list last weekend, the tree sparrows are still hanging around so they were recorded but just towards the end of my second cup of tea and twentieth ginger snap movement on the telegraph pole highlighted a first for any of my gardens ever, a beautiful nuthatch.

I notched up 18 species over my watch not spectacular but worthwhile with my first nuthatch and the commonest visitor was again the sparrows with a grand total of 16 available. Sounds good?? Well for this garden not a lot has changed over the 5 years I have been here but if I look back over the year to my first garden which happens to be not far from where I live now the numbers of bird species is markedly different. 30 years ago I averaged between 30 and 50 starlings on the lawn every day as soon as any scraps were thrown out they were down, I now have 3 or 4 who come to the scraps. Every corner of my first house had a sparrows nest under the eaves now I have none and know of only three in eyesight of the present house.

Starling flocks on the lawn largely a thing of the past unless your fortunate to have a few about the area

This is why recording is so important and the above is just a tiny snap shot of how things change so we can investigate why they have changed and do something about it, well that’s the theory anyway. We can all do it to its easy write what you have seen on a scrap of paper use the internet to source the many recording portals out there, your county bird or mammal recorder or simpler still just email the Great North Museum on the following email: eye.project@twmuseums.org.uk

These records can then be fed into the regional recording centre ERIC and there accessed by all who need them, simples. So what you waiting for, get out there and start recording…anything birds, flowers, bees you name it its all there to be recorded and all important.