Ecological Nirvana

Now that's what I call a field trip.

After a woeful excuse of a field trip to Scarborough that involved sitting indoors in a lab for the majority of the week this week away has finally put field trips back into the good books.

We went to Malham Tarn and stayed at the field centre there (once used by Darwin himself) which is situated by the side of the Tarn (a big lake) and surrounded by an island of mixed woodland in the middle of open hills and limestone cliffs. The walk up to the field centre from the village of Malham set the tone for the whole week by providing incredible wildlife and stunning scenery. The pair of Peregrines that nest on Malham Cove were both seen and whilst we could hear the chicks begging for food, finding them on the cliff face was impossible. A male Redstart showed up to steal the show whilst waiting for the Peregrines to make their appearance, followed by multiple sightings of Wheatear on fields above the Cove.

The field centre itself is a beautiful old building crawling with nature with Pipistrelle bats roosting under the eves, Jackdaws nesting in the masonry and a Spotted Flycatcher feeding on the lawn in front of the house. We hadn't just gone up there to admire the wildlife however. This was a module for my degree and we were being assessed on how we carried out a project. Me and another fella were mapping out and comparing the territories of Willow Warblers in two different habitats, those being the woodland and the fen. The fen was a located at the western edge of the woodland and bordered the Tarn and held some absolute treasures.

The evening that we arrived we were told to explore the area to get a feel for the place before we began our study the following day. The first thing that was noticed was the cacophony of Willow Warbler song. It felt like you were drowning in the cascading liquid song of these marvelous little birds. I feel now would be a right time to declare my love for the Willow Warbler (although I may have already done this before). To me its not the first Swallow or Chiffchaff that tells me that spring is here, but that beautiful flowing song of the Willow Warbler which never fails to put a smile on my face the first time I hear it. Although saying that, by the end of the week I'd spent so long listening to Willow Warblers that I was beginning to hear them when going to sleep at night. Which was worrying.

Top left; Sundew. Bottom left; Bog Bean. Right; Globeflower.

Down in the fen was a family of Redstarts that were one of the two we got to know quite well over the week, as well as an astonishing amount of plant life. There were Sundews (a carnivorous plant that catches its prey using a sticky secretion on its surface that form in drops), Globeflowers (which are specially evolved so they never actually open but are specially pollinated by one fly which is small enough to squeeze through the petals) and an absolute sea of Bog Bean (which I was told by my tutor is very rare and that he'd never seen anything like this).

Our work mapping the Willow Warbler territories involved doing three walks through the woodland and fen per day for 5 days. These were to be done at 6am, 1pm and 7pm. The obvious downside of this was the alarm going off at half 5 in morning but the upshot was the amount of wildlife we saw by walking through the habitats so often. We saw countless sightings of Roe Deer in the mornings and evenings, including at least two different stags and a female with two kids (Yes, Roe Deer youngsters are called kids apparently). We saw countless Spotted Flycatchers, saw a male Pied Flycatcher using a nest box and found the drumming post of a Great Spotted Woodpecker. About the only thing we didn't see were the mythical otters that were rumored to be living on the Tarn... A tantalizing footprint was as far as we got, despite the nights spent in the hide.

As spring was late it meant that breeding was still in full flow when it came to the bird life. As Willow Warblers generally make their nests in the centre of their territories then locating one would therefore represent the holy grail when it came to mapping our territories. Challenge accepted. I knew they nested on the ground and were well hidden after seeing them on Springwatch a few times. I'd never found a Willow Warbler nest before but it only took one day before I located the first one on the fen after watching the adults going in to feed. On closer inspection, the chicks were quite old so when it came to taking a picture I didn't get too close so they didn't "explode" from the nest (premature fledging to disperse themselves as an anti-predator defense).

Wren chicks smiling for the camera...

The next nest found wasn't a Willow Warblers but a Wrens and was on a rock face that I was sure there would be one. Honestly you couldn't have designed a more perfect Wren nesting site than the rock face that they were using. Being a classic Wren however, the nest was impossible to find and was only given away when she flew out as we walked by one afternoon. After a quick picture we left and watched her return to the nest (always the best part of nest finding, and something I make sure to do on all the nests I find).

Tiny Willow Warbler chicks under the rock

We were then back on Willow Warbler nest finding duty and encountered one of the most incredibly well hidden nests I have ever seen. To put it into context, four twenty year old University students couldn't find the nest even after watching the adults drop to the ground with food on multiple occasions. We searched the immediate area in which the adult had landed, including under a huge rock that we felt sure the nest would be hidden under. After giving up for the day it wasn't till the next day that I decided to have another crack and watched the adult return again. This time I positioned myself at a different angle and saw it land on the floor and jump about half a metre to the rock. Once it had flew away I went to inspect under the rock more thoroughly and sure enough, tucked deep under the rock was a beautifully well hidden nest that we had missed the day earlier. What made it more remarkable was that this rock was walked on nearly everyday by people that had laid out small mammal traps in the woods yet the birds didn't seem to mind.

Willow Warbler eggs

The nest tally rose by three more after that with the finding of a nest of blackbird eggs and two more Willow Warbler nests, one with about ready to fledge chicks and one with eggs. There's just something about nest finding that never ceases to make it fun.

The project went perfectly and we presented it to the rest of the class with no problems. There was a bird ringer present (a lovely guy by the name of Chris Wright) who rang a few birds over the week, most notably Spotted Flycatcher and Redstart. I ventured over to the other side of the flying world to catch some bats one night (although I was more happy with seeing Little Owl and Curlew on the drive to the roost) and I've now borrowed a bat detector from the University for the summer to try and find out a bit more about them. Moths are also another animal high on my agenda of new things to learn about after trying to identify some that had been caught in moth traps overnight. Their colours, shapes and imaginative names sold me on them immediately and I'm keen to learn more.

But apart from that, that's about it really.

Either a Pipistrelle or Daubenton's... I'm going Daubenton's

Spotted Flycatcher being ringed