If you have been out and about lately, you may have noticed skylarks filling the air with their song again, after a summer break. A flock of fieldfares has also returned, but up here they will have less volume of hedgerow to settle and feed on this year.
The land management of the fields owned by Corpus Christi College has changed dramatically. Herbicide has been applied repeatedly and liberally, laying waste to an area that was formerly awash with wildlife. And now substantial lengths of hedgerow have been brutally cut back, and a number of trees removed.
It is difficult to know why this has happened. Most likely, it is just the way the new manager of the land has always done things. Or it could be a deliberate attempt to reduce the level of biodiversity in order to make the garden village’s goal of 25% “biodiversity net gain” that much easier to achieve – which could result in biodiversity net loss.
On a happier note, our own bird feeders are as active as ever, as the birds stock up for winter. It is interesting to watch their etiquette, or lack of it, as the various species mingle. Generally speaking, the blue and great tits, goldfinches and sparrows will take turns at the feeders if they arrive en masse, but they don’t mind sharing in smaller numbers. Chaffinches and dunnocks are content to stay closer to the ground.
Collared doves and woodpigeons are clearly rivals for the same space. The pigeons bully the doves, and then perch on the bird bath, lift their tails and defecate into it. Regular changes of water are required. Everyone makes room for the great spotted woodpeckers.
A few starling scouts have begun to reappear. They are not bullies, but when the main body of them arrives, they take over – rather like a large group of boisterous football fans descending on a pub without realising the effect they are having on the local clientele.
Nature has been unusually busy inside our house this year, possibly because of the drought. A few weeks ago, we had an infestation of fleas in some recently acquired secondhand furniture. After considerable effort, they have now gone (we hope), together with the furniture.
Then there was an explosion of slow-moving house flies, probably emerging from some dead mouse the cat brought in and left in an unswept corner of a hidden subsurface, leaving a legacy of eggs and maggots as it rotted. But these flies are very obliging. Each time I enter the room where they mainly congregate – it happens to be our bedroom – I see them gathering on the windows, which I open and they fly off, together with the obligatory wasp. They seem to have all gone at last.