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.