Consider the duck - a philosophical musing

Although the bridge is still out of action I still go and have a drink down the mill, read a book and watch the world go by. Last week I watched a Heron hunting and this week a lone male Mallard caught my eye. He was comfortably paddling amongst the reeds oblivious to those of us on the terrace sipping drinks or finishing of a platter of breakfast.

Mallard Drake (c) M. Smith

He swam slowly, almost leisurely between the vegetation pausing to dip his head down to sample the food below. Finding a good spot he would upend in the traditional fashion un self consciously showing everyone his white rear end as his neck delved below.

As I watched his antics I consider how his life varied from mine and what that meant. I placed myself in his webbed feet. Were our roles reversed my life would revolve around basically food and sex, not bad you might say but dig a little deeper. Most of his day would be taken up foraging for food just to make it to another day. During my degree I explored Optimal Foraging Theory; this is the delicate balance species have to make between expending energy in gaining energy. It is no good expending 300 calories of effort to get only 200 calories of reward. In the wild this seemingly complicated mathematical analysis is innate, get it wrong and you die, get it right and for time being you get to live. It is a concept now being exploited in computer games, the survivor genre is often accompanied by zombies or the apocalypse as in State of Decay 2 or Metal Gear Survive but the ingredients are the same, get food, water, medicine first or you won’t survive long enough to turn back the zombie horde or to build the best outpost.

Balancing life and death decisions on this level is something we are remote from. Consider the duck again; he will forage for as long as he is able. He must find a suitably safe roosting spot and in the long term find a mate with which to procreate. The basics of being an organism, I, however, had just paid for someone to give me a cola and if I so wished would have brought me food. In 5 minutes my sustenance needs were met, I had a home for shelter and even more food and drink waiting for me there and I was able to spend the next hour just sat reading a book. Okay the money I used had to be earned and I spend 5 out of 7 days achieving that but what leisure time did the duck have and what did it do with it?

The critical point for mankind was the development of farming, the minute we could produce more food than we needed daily we became something new. Free time was invented when we did not need to spend all day hunting and gathering when we could build houses and walled towns to protect ourselves. Free time is what allowed the development of civilisation. That free time allowed for hobbies, tools and weapons didn’t need to be merely functional; they could be intricate and beautiful. Time spent drawing, painting; singing no longer interfered with the basics of staying alive. Art for art’s sake, for pleasure, was possible. Humankind was able to begin its dominance over the world. But let us not forget that we are still one species amongst many, that our roots are the same as a dog or monkey.

Do animals do things for pleasure? This is a more complex issue than I wish to address today but let’s look at an animal further along the scale, say a cat. Domestic cats have their meals provided and have a shelter so what do they do with their spare time. Well, like all good followers of optimal foraging theory they conserve energy, they sleep, but they also go out and hold territories, they don’t need them but they still do it. They hunt, they don’t need to but they still do. They play, they don’t need to hone their skills to hunt, but they still play. Are these innate hold over’s from a pre-domestication time. Has the passage of time not been long enough for basic urges to be overcome as they seem to have been in man or perhaps the cat has chosen to do these things with its free time? Are we then in thousands of year’s time to see the art and civilisation of animals we have raised up or as David Brin may have put it – uplifted?

And yet the duck keep paddling about until I have finished my drink and I have decided to go home and make myself a sandwich.

Pellet Analysis

Last month I discovered a large batch of 31 owl pellets beneath a tree not far from where my trail cam was in operation.

The dark pellets belong to a Tawny Owl that I believe uses the tree as a roost site. Tawny Owls are occasionally seen on the site, I have been lucky enough to see a young owl a few years back and last, June was fortunate enough to catch a failed kill on camera.

As you can imagine dissecting the pellets took some time. I used a dry method waiting until the pellets were completely dry before working on them by teasing them open with gloved bare hands.

Each pellets length and width was measured and its weight recorded. I then separated out the bones and reweighed it giving me a bone mass and a fur mass. I used skulls and jaws as my main counting method to determine the number of prey per pellet.

The results were very interesting I was amazed at the high number of Shrew prey in the pellet, far more than I ever expected. It is unclear how long a time period these pellets represent and until the bridge reopens and I can collect any new pellets the timeframe is unknown.

What is interesting is the amount of available small mammals in the area. I regularly record Wood Mice on the trail cams, Bank Voles I see if baited out in the late afternoon and Shrews can be seen or heard in the summer, but bear in mind that the Tawny Owl isn't the only predator in the area, I have recorded Weasel, Stoat, Fox, Kestrel, Buzzard and Grey Heron on the site, all of whom would prey on these mammals.

I hope to supplement these observations with some small mammal trapping and follow up pellet analyses ( if the same tree is still being used).

The main data:

Ongoing Projects - an update

I haven't posted in awhile and there are some good reasons for that, so I thought I would update you on whats going on.

Over the last two weeks, the weather hasn't been very inspiring and I have felt out of sorts this has meant I haven't been out as much as usual, add to that I have had an assignment to write for my Master's course.

Camera Trapping
My camera trapping project is coming on a pace and I am still wading through the piles of data to collate them into a suitable document for publishing.
The bait camera trap is still producing excellent results and I am starting to build up a database of individual badgers that use the area.
At home, with help of Ron Bury, I have managed to repair my two Acorn cameras and was able to use one this week to finally solve the mystery of what has been making a hole in the lawn - a mouse!

Campaigning
I m still campaigning against the Badger Cull and the lack of scientific rigour in the government's plans, there will be more on this soon.
Sadly I still haven't heard back from Micheal Gove or my local MP yet.

Owls
Whilst pottering about on my land I discovered a huge haul of over 30 owl pellets. I believe them to be from a Tawny Owl that uses the oak tree as a roost. I have spent the last 2 weeks slowly dissecting each one. It is fascinating to see the number of prey eaten. I have only dissected out 21 so far but have counted 72 individual prey items - all rodents to far although one did contain a beetle leg, another a feather and nearly all of them soil - an indication of worm consumption.

We don't need a cull to reduce Badger numbers!

We don't need a cull to reduce Badger numbers we are already deadly enough.This week just off the estate near a busy road I found this small badger, sadly deceased.

The poor sow didn't seem to have a mark on her. It is likely she was clipped by a car and then struggled to the verge and died of internal injuries. Injured animals often seek a quiet spot when dying and can travel some distance to achieve this.

You can tell the individual is female due to the prominent teat. I had believed that given the small size the sow was a yearling perhaps displaced by new cubs born in the sett during February and March but now I am not so sure, females often remain in the setts and males are more likely to move off.
Luckily despite the teat, there did not seem to be heavy with milk so I hope that there are no orphaned cubs.

A report in 2001 estimated that upward of 50,000 badgers are killed on the roads every year alongside 100,000 foxes and 100,000 hedgehogs (Mammal Society).

This was the first time I have had a chance to have a close up look at a badger and I revelled in her beauty and wallowed in my sadness. You can see clearly the pads on the feet that make the distinctive footprints and the powerful claws used for digging. Death is a natural part of ecology and I have posted before where I have found dead and dying animals, but such an individual as this is different, this one did not suffer a natural death. A death from starvation, disease or predation or even old age, this death was at the hands of a human, intentional or not.

On a side note, I have yet to have had a reply from Micheal Gove or Matt Western which is both disappointing and infuriating, in better news, however, I met with a local county councillor who has agreed to place the matter before the council cabinet, not that I hold out much hope that the county can do much.

Weasel!

A quick post tonight to highlight a rare sighting made on the trail cam. On Friday at 7.22 in the morning the camera recorded a Weasel.

I have recorded Weasels before but this was the first time a clear image was collected. They are our smallest carnivore and lightning fast. I have my camera set to record both a still shot photo and a video. It is situations like this that show why. The photo has a faster trigger than the video and by the time the video had clicked in 3 seconds later the weasel was gone. If it was set to just video it is unlikely I would have any record, just a 10-second clip of the ground.

I still want to get footage of the Weasel in action as they are a marvel to watch. I was lucky enough to see one in February 2010. The small creature ran lithely through the undergrowth before seeing me and diving into a small hole in a tree. It was obviously uncomfortable in the hole and kept checking to see if I was still there. I waited and watched for awhile getting a few photos and then just as I turned my head slightly it was off, taking the chance to bolt into leaf litter and disappeared. It was without a doubt one of my most memorable wildlife encounters

The fight for Badgers goes on.

This week a government consultation opened that could pave the way for the badger cull to be extended to Warwickshire. I am appalled at the risk to badgers in general and to my badgers in particular, such as the chap in the picture.

I decided I need to renew my fight and have started with letters to both my local MP and Mr Gove the Minister of DEFRA.

I would like to urge everyone to take 5 minutes to email their local MP and ask for the cull to be suspended.

A copy of my email is shown below and I will update you all on any responses.

Dear MP,

I am writing to express my deep concerns regarding the continuing Badger cull as a means to control Bovine Tuberculosis and the threat that the cull zone is possibly going to be expanded to Warwickshire.

This is not the first time I have written to the government, nor to representatives of the Conservative and Labour parties and never received a satisfactory response. There are a number of key issues I would like you to address as my representative in parliament.

1.  The fact that the cull continues despite its efficacy being in question regarding the scientific validity of the scheme.

2. That results and success criteria are not made public.

3. That although much is made of Biosecurity the UK as a whole is lagging in its adoption and several new outbreaks of TB can be directly linked to the cattle movements and not Badgers. The NFU are not pulling their weight in fighting this disease.

4. That the premise of the cull as a means to remove a reservoir of TB is flawed as it does not take into account other potential reservoirs.

5. There are extreme concerns regarding the welfare of Badgers being culled. The shooting policy does not appear to be a humane approach and the monitoring of culls seems extremely lacklustre.

6. That at the start of the cull Badgers shot as part of the programme were not assessed for the presence of bTB making it impossible to assess the extent of the disease in the wild population which would give excellent data upon which to assess success criteria.

7. The structure of the consultation covering the expansion of the zones restricts comments to only those directly – economically at risk from the cull. This does not take into account my social, ethical and scientific opposition to the expansion.

I would like to propose a moratorium to be placed on a cull with the focus placed on biosecurity with culls saved for targeted use only in extreme cases. Policy in this area should be scientifically led not ignored as is the current approach. With the exit from the EU there is potential for new legislation to strengthen both nature conservation, sustainable farming and rural productivity.

As a scientist and ecologist I am appalled at the way many decisions made in government ignore scientific advice preferring to focus on socio-economic factors only or pandering to pressure groups.

I hope that you at least agree with some of my points and that you are able to promote the agenda to revisit the need and mechanism of the Badger cull in the fight against bTB. There is a way that the cattle industry can remain profitable and coexist with the environment, but at the moment the emphasis is too skewed and badly balanced.

Thank you for your time in reading this and in anticipation of your response and action.

Regards

Disability day at the feeders

First of all, I apologise for not posting for awhile but a touch of the flu laid me out for 2 weeks. I am all better now and this weekend I have been out and about, checking my trail cam, counting swans and watching the birds in the garden.

We have a new feeding station which contains mealworms, suet pieces and white sunflower seeds and this afternoon I watched the birds adjust to this new item in the garden in the sunshine. The first to approach was a Starling followed shortly by a Robin which has started to exhibit mating signs and nesting behaviour. 

Most interestingly a single Blue Tit came to feed exclusively on the dried mealworms. This individual had a dishevelled look and a deformed beak - see below.

Such deformities are not uncommon in Blue Tits. In this case, the beak is longer than normal with a hyperextended upper mandible. 

Such deformities are found in many Tit species and the BTO Garden Watch has documented the rise of this possible disease. 

Data from British Trust for Ornithology - https://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/gbw/about/background/projects/bgbw/results/types 

Such deformities in the beak are not fully understood and is named as Avian Keratin Disorder (AKD). This relates to the fabric of the beak itself which is a keratin sheath over bone. It has been suggested that because keratin continues to grow like our fingernails that the defect is due to the beak not getting worn down but this does not explain many of the cases.

If the beak deformity is too extreme then it will have a negative effect on the ability for the bird to feed itself and die fairly quickly. In this case, the beak has not hindered the birds feeding although it is possible that such birds only survive at feeders and would struggle foraging for itself. It would be interesting to see if the deformities occur in wild populations. Are they an example of over-identification in well-watched gardens or is their survival greater in gardens.

Whilst the causes are not fully understood some research has been taken in America. AKD was first recorded in Alaska in Chickadees (North American relatives of the Tits) in the 1990's and was subsequently recorded in Nuthatches and Crows. USGS scientist Dr Colleen Handel began investigating the occurrence and originally started looking at organochlorine poisoning and strontium depletion before coming across the possibility of a pathogenic cause.

Blacked-Capped Chickadee. Photograph by: Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com

Her studies involved genetic level studies of the birds and revealed an RNA virus in the  Picornnavirus family that she named Poecivrius. This virus was found in 100% of birds studied with the deformities and only 22% of those without it. The paper was published in 2016.

It is likely that the real cause is more complicated than just a virus and although promising this was a small study which so far has not been followed up and there appears to have been no work to identify the virus in British populations.

You can report any sightings of birds with deformed beaks to the BTO - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MF9PHYJ?sm=8eLw8z78HLBP8EQrk4oCQA%3d%3d

Whilst the Blue Tit continued to feed a Woodpigeon tentatively approached the bird feeder. He seemed less skittish as usual and his behaviour was slightly off and it soon became apparent. He was blind in the right eye, in fact, he had no right eye at all. It's hard to tell from the picture if this was a result of injury or a birth defect.

The bird seemed well fed and otherwise unaffected, such a disability is rarely seen it usually increases their chance of predation that they do not last long. However, by looking around more and shifting his head the pigeon seems to be doing fine although the loss of depth perception gained from two eyes meant his landing was a little clumsy.


References:

Zylberberg M, Van Hemert C, Dumbacher JP, Handel CM, Tihan T, DeRisi JL. Novel Picornavirus Associated with Avian Keratin Disorder in Alaskan Birds. mBio. 2016;7(4):e00874-16. doi:10.1128/mBio.00874-16.