by Stephen Moss
Meanwhile, in our back garden, a permanent resident of the parish is busily feeding its hungry brood. A cider-apple tree is covered with white blossom, like icing on a wedding cake, hiding the trunk completely from view. But a chorus of cheeping sounds coming from this snow-white canopy demands a closer look. Halfway up the trunk I see a neat, oval-shaped hole; the worn, smooth, lighter patch of wood at its base showing that it is occupied by a brood of great spotted woodpeckers. Every couple of minutes I hear a loud and resonant ‘chip’, the signal that one of the parent birds is returning to the nest with food. Moments later it flies in, bouncing through the air on broad, rounded wings.
The male woodpecker usually lands a short distance above the nest hole, then manoeuvres himself into position before entering. A minute or so later he departs, having momentarily satisfied the hunger of his brood. He and his mate keep up their duties during every daylight hour for three frantic weeks, and even after the youngsters have left the nest, the parents will continue to feed them for another week or so.
The old name of this species was ‘pied woodpecker’, and its contrasting black-and-white plumage is certainly striking, as is the bright crimson patch on the back of the male’s head. Great spotted woodpeckers have become much more common even in my lifetime, and now frequently visit garden bird-feeders, scaring off the smaller birds by their presence. They also raid nestboxes for baby blue tits, but despite this predatory behaviour the great spotted woodpecker has not yet joined the magpie on the blacklist of demonised garden birds.
In some ways it is surprising to find woodpeckers here at all in this flat, largely treeless landscape, where treecreepers are a rarity, and jays and nuthatches are absent. But there are enough clusters of oak and ash, especially around the houses and farms, to provide a refuge for them, along with the largest British member of its family, the green woodpecker.
About the size of a pigeon, the green woodpecker has yellow-and-green plumage, a scarlet crown, and large, staring eyes, making it impossible to mistake for any other bird. It is very partial to ants, and in summer can often be found feeding on the village lawns, pecking at the anthills in the longer grass to disturb their multitudinous occupants.
If my neighbours venture outdoors early in the morning, they may see this colourful bird heading off into the distance on clumsy, bouncing wings, and uttering the call that gave it its traditional country name, the ‘yaffle’. My children, hearing this distant echoing sound, always refer to its maker as ‘the woodpecker that laughs at us’.
TWO OTHER KINDS of woodpecker used to live here in the parish, though sadly both are now long gone. The smallest European woodpecker, the lesser spotted, is virtually half the size of its great spotted relative; barely the length of a sparrow. True to its size, it behaves rather like a songbird, and in winter often joins flocks of tits as they travel around woods and hedgerows in search of food.
The lesser spotted woodpecker population boomed here in Somerset from the late eighteenth century onwards, after it was discovered that the process of cider-making caused drinkers to suffer from lead poisoning. Cider sales plummeted, but the orchards were left standing; with the trees’ gradual decay providing the ideal breeding habitat for the lesser spotted woodpecker. In Birds of Somersetshire, published in 1869, Cecil Smith describes this species as being much more common than the great spotted, and as late as the 1920s, it was still considered to be the most numerous woodpecker in Somerset. Given its retiring habits, this means it must have been very common indeed.
By the end of the Second World War those ancient orchards had finally been grubbed up, and the lesser spotted woodpecker was beginning its rapid decline. My neighbour Mick remembers them nesting in the orchard alongside our home as recently as twenty years ago, but soon afterwards they had gone. The loss of elms, that classic tree of the English lowland landscape, was partly to blame; as was the close cutting of hedgerows, which the woodpeckers used as corridors to move around the neighbourhood.
Today, the lesser spotted woodpecker has disappeared not only from this parish, but from the whole of the Somerset Levels. This decline has been mirrored in the country as a whole, and there are now fewer than two thousand breeding pairs in Britain, mostly in our ancient woodlands. Even these are now under threat from a population explosion of the introduced muntjac deer, which browse the young saplings, destroying the breeding habitat for these, and many other, woodland birds.
A fourth species of woodpecker has disappeared not only from this parish, and from the county of Somerset, but also from the whole of the British countryside. With a plumage like the bark of a tree, and the peculiar habit of twisting its neck and hissing at its enemies, the wryneck is a truly bizarre bird. It was once common enough to have acquired not only its vernacular name, but a wide range of folk names, including ‘snake bird’, ‘twister’ and ‘emmet hunter’, referring to its partiality for ants. But my favourite name for the wryneck is ‘cuckoo’s mate’, so given because the wryneck used to arrive here in the middle of April, about the same time as the cuckoo.
The poet John Clare told the tale of a boy who disturbed a wryneck at its nest in a hollow tree; when the bird poked its head out of the hole and hissed, the boy assumed it was a snake, and fell to the ground in panic. Sadly such an experience is now denied the youngsters of this and every other English parish. A century ago the wryneck was common in orchards throughout southern England; but, like the lesser spotted woodpecker, it began to decline, this decline rapidly turning into freefall. The last pair bred in Somerset during the Second World War, and by the 1980s the wryneck had completely disappeared as a British breeding bird.
Another lost bird, the red-backed shrike, vanished at about the same time. Cecil Smith describes the shrike as common in Somerset, where it was known as the ‘butcher bird’, from its habit of impaling its prey – beetles, frogs and baby birds – on a thorn bush.
The reasons for the rapid and terminal decline of these two once widespread birds are still a mystery. It may have been the trend towards cooler, wetter summers; or perhaps the increased use of pesticides – we don’t really know. I have seen the occasional wryneck and red-backed shrike along the east coast in autumn; migrants stopping off to rest and feed on their way from their Scandinavian breeding grounds to their African winter quarters. Red-backed shrikes have recently bred again in Britain, and may be on the verge of making a welcome comeback. But the wryneck appears to be lost to us for ever.
The story of the wryneck is not simply the tale of one vanishing species, but a parable about the devastating changes wrought on the British countryside in the past hundred years. For now that the orchard by my home – and every other orchard in England – no longer echoes with the wryneck’s repetitive, high-pitched call, the whole landscape has not just been impoverished, but altered for ever. As with the cuckoo and the spotted flycatcher, this raises a pressing question: if those species our great-grandparents saw as part of their daily lives no longer survive here, does the place where we live merit the name countryside?
BY JULY, THE waters of the parish – ditches, rhynes and cuts, carefully demarcated according to size – are thronged with life. Yet as I walk or cycle past, all I see is various shades of green: the dark, turbid carpet of blanket weed, ranging from near black to moss-green; and the paler, lime-green film of duckweed. Beneath this covering, below the water’s surface, life is no doubt thriving.
Time for a spot of pond-dipping. As a child we did this all the time, though it wasn’t such an organised activity as the term ‘pond-dipping’ suggests; we just went out with our nets and jam jars and fished for tiddlers. My own children are still at an age when they are both curious and enthusiastic in equal measure; the perfect time to investigate these hidden depths. And to help us do so, and identify what we find, we are accompanied by my naturalist friend Peter, whose knowledge of the inhabitants of our fresh waters is legion.
Most of the rhynes around here are steep-sided, the banks covered in brambles and net
tles; good reasons to avoid them if we want to avoid pain, tears or soakings. But the concrete bridge over Mark Yeo, near the northern boundary of the parish, provides a firm platform, free from pricking or stinging plants. It also allows easy access for the nets: ours, a colourful selection bought for rock-pooling on beach holidays; Peter’s the more professional version, a triangular muslin cone with a smooth, rosewood handle.
On this fine, sunny morning skylarks are singing, clumps of mayweed line the edges of the fields, and summer insects are already on the wing. A black-tailed skimmer dragonfly, his slender, powder-blue abdomen tipped with black, cruises low over the water; while matchstick-like azure damselflies flit from leaf to leaf. But the highlight is the presence of a most colourful and graceful insect: the banded demoiselle.
Banded demoiselles, which appear during warm, sunny days in June and July, are often mistaken for butterflies or day-flying moths, and indeed another name for them is ‘water-butterflies’. Today they live up to that description, fluttering delicately in little groups around the bankside vegetation, a foot or so above the surface of the water.
The dark bands across the transparent wings of the males flash constantly. They are presumably being used, like birdsong, to signal to rival males and potential mates. When the demoiselles land I am astonished by the colour of their abdomen, which varies according to the angle of the light: sometimes bottle-green, sometimes deep turquoise-blue. The female, though attractive in a quiet way, is easy to overlook as she perches on a reed stem. Her wings lack the male’s dark band, and she is pea-green in colour, with a bright metallic sheen.
Beautiful as these insects are, we haven’t come to look at wildlife above the surface, but below. The water itself is crystal clear, though the prevalence of blanket weed, jammed up against the dam of the concrete bridge, suggests that too much chemical fertiliser has been used on the adjacent fields. But the presence of pond snails on the weed’s surface, each grazing its own little patch like slow-motion cattle out to grass, gives some cause for hope.
The surface of the water is alive with activity, another good sign. Mayflies are here, as are dozens of whirligig beetles, whizzing insanely around like dodgem cars, but never actually crashing into one another. Peter nets some, and we take a closer look: the black shell appearing almost silver, as if a small drop of mercury has been applied to its surface. The next pass of the net produces more treasures, which are swiftly transferred to a white metal dish, of the type we used to see in doctors’ surgeries.
A leech swims around, alternately extending its front end and bunching up its rear, thus passing from a long, slender creature into a stout, round one, and back again, in a second or two. This effective means of locomotion continues when Peter picks it up, and we watch as it slides along his finger. The children are suitably entranced.
Water-boatmen are backstroke swimmers with three pairs of legs. They use the middle pair to propel them efficiently along (the rear legs are used as rudders, while the front pair grabs any passing morsels of food). We avoid picking them up, for they can give a nasty bite; as painful, Peter tells me, as a bee sting. We have also caught an awful lot of snails: the giant pond snail, whose elongated, spire-like shape neatly reflects the distant spire of the church at East Brent; and the smaller ramshorn snail, whose shell does indeed curl around itself like a sheep’s horn. There is also a much smaller, reddish-black creature, which might pass for a tiny pebble: the cherrystone beetle, named for its obvious resemblance to the seeds of that summer fruit.
Meanwhile, Daisy and Charlie are catching fish by the netful: tiny silvery creatures rather like miniature whitebait. A closer look reveals three small spines – stickle backs, of course. We explain the stickleback’s extraordinary lifecycle to the children – how the males make a nest and look after the young – but they are more interested in catching even more fish. These include a few browner individuals without the spines: minnows.
George nets a great prize, a pale yellowish-brown creature about the length of my thumb joint, with formidable-looking jaws. To me it looks like a dragonfly nymph, but Peter identifies it as the larva of the great diving beetle, which ranks with the largest British aquatic invertebrates. Deposited in the tray, it makes short work of grabbing and devouring a tiny stickleback.
A smaller rhyne, just across the road, is covered with lime-green: the run-of-the-mill common duckweed, and the larger giant duckweed, a deep auburn-red in colour. Duckweed’s ability to completely cover the surface of the water, creating the illusion of solidity, has given rise to a chilling folk tale: the story of Jenny Greenteeth. Jenny is supposed to lure little children into her watery lair by tempting them to walk on the solid-looking duckweed, causing them to fall through and drown. My own children watch agog as I relate this story, presumably designed to warn earlier generations of the perils of venturing too near the water.
After a pint and a ploughman’s at the White Horse Inn, we head across to Tealham Moor, where a herd of curious cattle wanders over to watch our equally curious antics. Here we find no fewer than four out of five species of native duckweed: the pale green ivy-leaved, and the bladder-like gibbous, making up the quartet. It is the fifth, more elusive duckweed species we are really searching for: the tiny Wolffia arrhiza, the smallest flowering plant in Britain, and one of the smallest in the world. As its scientific name suggests, this plant has no roots, and being so tiny, is not an easy plant to find. But Peter has a cunning plan. Turning his net around, he dips the rosewood handle into the water and sweeps it from side to side. Duckweed sticks to wood, so hopefully his trawl will include our tiny target.
Unfortunately, despite persistent sweeping, it does not. As we walk back along the banks of the rhyne we do come across the open shell of a huge duck mussel; at almost 5 inches across, a giant compared with most British invertebrates. The outside of the shell is greenish-yellow, marked with narrow black lines, while the inside has the smooth, polished appearance of mother-of-pearl. Our fascination with the mussel shell means we fail to notice the cattle approaching; and a brief moment of panic ensues as the children look up to see a wall of black and white towering over them. A swift clamber over the farm gate, and our outing reaches a satisfactory conclusion.
Very satisfactory, indeed. The children’s verdict – ‘the best day ever!’ – suggests that the rival attractions of TV and computer games may not be quite as compelling as we sometimes suppose. Given the simple pleasures of a fishing net, clear water and some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet, children actually find nature quite interesting, after all.
RIVALLING THE FOX as the least popular animal around these parts is the badger. This is not the place to go into the debate about badgers and bovine TB, but of one thing there can be no doubt: the badger is never going to come top of the animal hit parade, at least among the local farming community here in Somerset. But among many other people, in the country and the city, badgers are very popular indeed. Thanks to television programmes such as Springwatch, and the genial old character in The Wind in the Willows, badgers are often regarded as rather amiable creatures, to be encouraged rather than condemned or culled.
So which of these two images – the ‘good badger’ and the ‘bad badger’ – is the right one? Of course the truth lies somewhere in between: the badger is simply a wild animal getting on with its life as best it can, given that human beings have invaded its world. For badgers are, above all, creatures of habit. They live in the same setts as their ancestors, follow the same nocturnal trails in search of food, and remain faithful to the same place, even if people have changed it beyond recognition; for example, by building a housing estate over it.
My in-laws, living in a bungalow on the outskirts of Wedmore, are currently fighting a running battle to stop the badgers digging up their small, neat lawn. It’s a battle that, despite yards of chicken wire being mobilised as a defence, they may well lose: it takes a lot to stop a determined badger. But others welcome the presence of badgers in their back
garden, and even seek to attract them there.
Susie and Kev live just outside the village of East Brent, a quarter-hour’s walk to the north-west of the parish, and at the foot of our well-known local landmark, Brent Knoll. This volcano-shaped hill rises almost 500 feet above the surrounding landscape, and over the centuries has played host to an Iron Age hill fort, a Roman camp, and a pitched battle between the men of Somerset and the invading Danes, a battle the local army won. It is also home to an extensive clan of badgers, which have become regular visitors to Susie and Kev’s back garden.
Until I moved down to Somerset, I had only ever seen two badgers in my whole life: both at night, both while I was driving, and both very brief views, as they scuttled across the road in front of me, a frustrating flash of black, white and grey. For despite their size – about the same as a fox terrier – badgers are just as elusive as any other wild mammal. Since living here I have enjoyed a few more encounters with them, such as one lumbering across a frosty field early one winter’s morning, or a rear end disappearing down the lane as we returned home from a late night out. But these have always been rather brief and unsatisfactory, so I am looking forward to a more rewarding experience tonight.
And a more rewarding experience, with badgers at least, would be hard to find. As I approach the front door it opens, and Susie quickly beckons me in. It’s not yet ten o’clock, and still fairly light, but the animals are, apparently, already here. She ushers me into the sitting room, and through the French windows I can see a bulky male badger shambling across the lawn, vacuuming up peanuts at an impressive rate.
Within a few minutes, as it gets dark, he is joined by the whole clan: four cubs and three females, eight badgers in all. Susie tells me they first arrived during the winter snows, taking advantage of the food she was putting out for the birds. Since then they’ve become regular visitors, and now that the summer drought has turned the ground rock-hard, and worms and slugs are hard to find, they appear grateful for her ready supply of nuts and jam-and-peanut-butter sandwiches. As I watch, they move steadily across the lawn, grazing intently like a herd of cattle.
