March Nature Notes

by David Tidmarsh - 17:45 on 21 March 2013

It is becoming more of a struggle to find things to write about with March not being much better that February. Out walking with the dog I spotted a lonely Dipper in the Lumley Burn, it was just starting to rain and even the dipper who regularly dips under the water, looked disappointed with the weather.
A nice flush of new growth is emerging from one of my favourite wild flowers; it has a cracking name, “Lords and Ladies” the broad leaves are now quite mature and will be followed by the large purple spike that emerges from the flask shaped chamber, the plant excretes a smell of rotting meat which attracts insects into the flask. The flying insects are then trapped by downward facing hairs which prevent the insects from escaping, unwittingly as they frantically fly around they pollinate  the stigmas of the female flowers and eventually their escape is improved by the “spathe”  becoming less sticky, the hairs shrivel up and they escape laden with pollen. Isn’t Nature Fascinating!
I have begun harvesting some willow from our allotment which I am weaving into a screen in our garden. I have driven some large cherry stakes into the area to be screened about a foot apart, this will allow me to weave the willow, what I have found is it is going to take a lot of willow! Three bundles have enabled me to do approximately eighteen inches; it is about six foot wide. I am not taking orders for further work!
Birds will soon be nest building, they are in the full throw of finding mates, it was nice to see my first Lapwing today in the field behind the Cricket Club. Lapwings don’t bother with fancy nests they are quite happy with a small hollow in the soil, not for them the intricate weaving of moss and sticks. They have a amazing method of luring potential predators away from the nest by faking a damaged wing, they will drag their wing as if it was broken, to hopefully attract enemies away from their nest.
When we were working on the farm, especially during nesting, we would try our best to watch out for these Lapwing nests, usually we had to use large gang rollers to break down the lumps of soil and this would compact the surface to keep the moisture in, so if we spotted a nest we would pickup the eggs and replace them after the area had been rolled.
So Lapwings nest in cultivated fields; Skylarks like grassed fields; Curlews prefer more rough grass land. So a lot of the time if you are unable to be fortunate enough to access these types of areas you will be unable to see these birds. I personally have hardly seen any Curlews since I left Lambton Estate; it was a good place for a lot of nesting birds, except if you were a Pheasant.
While I am on the subject of birds, I have always been positive about feeding wild birds all the year round, well we decided to put up additional bird feeders in the garden with peanuts in as opposed to the seed feeders that we mainly use, well they have been up a week and not a single bird has used them, how fussy can our wild birds be?
Anyway, let’s hope we get loads of sunshine before my next nature notes. Ken.

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