An afternoon beside a pool.

 We are lucky in Warwick to have a number of fantastic open spaces that contain a variety of different habitats and wildlife. Priory Park is parkland and woodland, the Racecourse is flat grassland with patches of wet patches and St Nicholas Park, although a municipal park aside from the large playing field it has a river, fishing lake and dipping pool.

Alongside Kingfisher pool is a small pond that was recently dredged and cleared. King Henry pool has now recovered and is a flourishing ecosystem with abundant emergent vegetation. At this time of the year it is a magnet for dragonflies and damselflies, they zip around hunting over the water and gently lay their eggs in the vegetation.

Focusing on just the small pool I was lucky enough to see several species. The most obvious were the ubiquitous Banded Demoiselles whose numbers are just starting to ebb. Of the larger species there were a couple of Emperor dragonflies. A male patrolled up and down in a set predictable pattern hawking for insects it would take and devour on the wing whilst a female flitted from area to area ovipositing. She dips the tip of her abdomen in to the water and injects the eggs on to a reed.

Female Emperor ovipositing

Several blue Black-tailed Skimmers were present and a single Four-spotted Chaser.

Four-spotted Chaser

The most abundant however of all the species were the small damselflies, hunting and mating. I only identified two species, Blue-tailed Damselflies and Azure Damselflies. Both are most active at this time of year.

Male and Female Azure Damselfly mating

In a small open patch of water were a mass of Whirligig beetles. These energetic water beetles were whizzing around on the surface like nobodies business. These amazing beetles spin around on the surface. It has a latin name that reflects its nature, Gyrinus substriatus, from the root of gyrate, which these beetles really do.

As if this wasn't enough i was lucky enough to spot a small pike. It couldn't have been more than 10-15cms long. It moved with effortless grace and came incredibly close. I was able to watch it as it stalked various tiny fish. Normally when I watch the large pike on my patch they tend to sit on the bottom and then pounce up. This young jack however patrolled at the surface and struck horizontally.

Young Pike

Of course there were also the birds, Swifts dipped down to feed across the lake and Chiffchaffs sung from the willows, there was also a Jay. 

It just goes to show how much life can exist in such a small space. Of all the species present during my hours visit I barely scratched the surface, a life time could be spent catalogue everything there and I already have that task to accomplish on my patch.

The General Election - A time for real change for the environment?

 

I was first able to vote in a general election in 1997, it was my first year of university and I was quite naively optimistic about exercising my democratic vote, things can only get better, right. I remember then that my vote was for the Conservatives, mainly because having grown up in the 80’s they were all I had ever known, and I came from a conservative leaning household. I think most of my friends see me as a Conservative, but my political affiliations change and are focused on the issues, the parties I vote for in general elections are often very different to those in local elections. As I have grown and matured, I have learned to examine the issues and weigh the pros and cons. As such since 1997 in the various votes that have been held, I have voted Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green Party, Plaid Cymru and Independent. I give this piece of personal background as a prelude to the rest of the post to try and illustrate that I try to be impartial in most matters.

In the past 5 or 6 general election campaigns I have attempted to place the environment on the agenda for consideration. I am probably one of the few who actually read the manifesto and weigh the pros and cons of the various policies. This analysis has in some years been very detailed and I have looked at tangential policies that may affect the environment but this time in a wave of apathy I do not think I have the strength to do the same. In previous elections I have written to the local candidates and asked them to extol their environmental policies and publicize them in the local press.

I have been involved in green politics for many years and I am now incredibly disillusioned. Politicians make the right sounds but rarely follow through when elected. I understand the difficulties of running the country and the competing time and interests but time after time the position of climate change and nature conservation are treated with very little respect.

This apathy had led me not to bother to comment on this election thus far which looks like the end point for Prime Minister Sunak and the appointment of Keir Starmer. The talking points about the election seem to be focused mainly on the economy and immigration, and then I remembered that I still had to vote and thought I at least had to make the effort to address the field and its runners and riders. So here we are, more of an essay than an analysis of the main parties’ environmental policies, I have only chosen to look at the three main parties as it is obvious that the Green Party has the best policies and Reform has very few.

The saddest part of the manifesto trawl was that the two main parties did not have specific sections of the environment instead drawing the issues into the ones surrounding energy and climate change. The Conservatives have sections on “affordable and pragmatic transition to net zero” and “supporting our rural way of life and enhance our environment”, whilst Labour’s “Make Britain and clean superpower” has sections including nature, clean water and animal welfare. The Liberal Democrats have sections on climate change and energy, and the natural environment.

On energy and climate change, Labour and the Conservatives have similar approaches, both push the development of nuclear power with new small modular reactors, a drive to invest in carbon capture and an expansion of renewable energies. The Conservatives wish to build new gas power stations whilst Labour wish to stop issuing any new licences for any oil, gas and coal exploration. The Liberals are more specific with very detailed ideas on committing to net zero by 2045 and investing in renewables so that they make up 90% of provision by 2030.

Given the recent travesty of the pollution of our rivers all three parties express a desire to act upon the water companies. The Conservatives wish to increase fines on the water companies and use those fines to pay for river restoration. Labour and the Liberals suggest new water authorities, regulatory bodies and greater legislative powers.

Specifically on biodiversity and the wider environment the Conservatives had very little more to add with a commitment to more tree planting and peat land protection, cutting red tape for tree planting and the designation of an 11^th National Park with improvement to the existing ones.

Labour plans to ban fracking, eradicate TB to end the badger cull (although they do not state how), ban trail hunting and ban hunting trophies. The Liberal Democrats go the furthest desiring to double the size of protected areas by 2050, plant 60 million trees a year, increase funding for the Environment Agency and Natural England (and by extension I guess CCCW and SNH), ensure new developments result in significant net gain for biodiversity and the protection of peatlands and temperate rainforests and a real network of marine protection areas.

So, where does this leave us. I think it is fair to say that on the balance of things that the effort made to combat the issues of Biodiversity in the UK is pretty dismal, I think it accurate to say that the environment will not be addressed in the press , husting or any TV debates. The manifestos spend very little time on the issue at all. The Liberal Democrats have the most detailed plan and cover a much wider range of the core environmental issues. The two big hitters have just rolled the whole cause of conservation into climate change and the energy crisis.

Now this may all seem very demoralizing, and a general election is about policies wider than just the environment, global security and the economy are very important, but I hope that every voter at least takes the time to consider it. I would urge every reader not to take my word on matters and that they themselves take the time to browse through the manifestos and reach their own judgement and make their decision on the 4^th July from a position of understanding and knowledge. Who will I vote for? I leave that to the sanctity of the voting booth. I have always voted with my head, perhaps its time I listen to my heart.

Observing Raptor nests - Buzzard

 There isn't much more exciting for a birder than discovering a nest and none more so than a bird of preys.

This year on my patch I have identified a Buzzard nest. A pair of Buzzards have nested annually on my patch for the last 20 years at least, but identifying the exact location has always been an issue. Buzzards are cunning birds and between late January and early May will build a series of nests across their territory. I have recorded them building such structures over the years but the trick is that they only lay in one of them and until this year it was never in one I had found.

Chick - about 10 days old (struggling to hold head above nest rim)

Early this season as the leaves were still starting to burst I noticed a large nest in the cleft of a tall willow tree. I marked it as promising but was unsure whether it was a sparrowhawks. Over the weeks I kept an eye on it and slowly I noticed that there was often a lone Buzzard nearby, either in the tree itself or in a tree beside it. I began to suspect it was the Buzzards. This was confirmed on the 2nd June when I was able to spot a chick in the nest. Since then there has always one of the parents sat on a nearby tree and this week I got a better look at the chick.

Chick about 20 days old. Chick able to hold itself upright

Watching nests comes with a lot of responsibility. All nests are protected law (Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981) and it is illegal to disturb them or take eggs. The baseline rule is that nothing that you do should risk the chicks in the nest or run the risk of disturbing the parents such that they abandon the nest. The BTO as part of their Nest Record Scheme (NRS) have an excellent Code of Conduct but I would suggest that  unless you are taking part in the NRS or some other sanctioned survey that you avoid getting close to any nest especially  when so many of our breeding birds are in trouble.

To safeguard my buzzards I have made sure that if I am checking the nest that I do not get any closer than 70m and if I can see nothing I move on. Although I use social media I have not revealed the nest location in anyway such information will only be shared with the NRS.

One of the Adults standing watch in a nearby tree

At present I have only ever seen a single chick in the nest. The average clutch size is 2-4 eggs but mortality can be high. Clutch size and survivability for my buzzards is probably most likely relate to food availability. Buzzards success has been linked to rabbit abundance and my patch has very few warrens in the area. Sheep pasture is also a favourite hunting ground of which there is 21 ha close by. It is my suspicion that these buzzards are taking mostly birds and could account for the distinct lack of breeding Great Spotted or Green Woodpeckers or even sightings of these birds for the past month.

Looking at the chicks rough size in the first picture I took I would estimate  the on the 2nd June the chick was 10 days. From this we can broadly extrapolate the following:

1st Eggs laid                     = 15th-17th April

Estimated Hatch Date      = 23rd May

Fledging Date                  = 2nd-28th July

Dispersal from Territory   = 21st August

These dates line up with the average dates listed in studies conducted by the Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme and in the text, The Birds of the Western Palearctic.

I will continue to monitor the nest carefully and hopefully see what prey is being brought in. Hopefully once it fledges and moves away from the nest I will be able to go closer and try and find any pellets under the nest to analyse contents.