Wild Hares and Hummingbirds (32 page)

We speculate on how far these little birds have come. Although the majority are likely to have hatched out nearby, perhaps even in the garden itself, others could have travelled much further. Even the tiny goldcrest might have flown all the way across the North Sea. If he has, he is not the only one to have come so far. This morning, as we unfurled the nets for the first time, a high-pitched ‘seep’ from the sky above signalled the very first redwing of the autumn. It had flown here from Iceland or Scandinavia, and was passing over the parish on its way south, possibly to France. Later on, we saw the very last swallows of the year heading over the field behind Mill Batch. For the first time I can recall, I have witnessed these summer visitors leaving on the same day as the first birds of winter arrive.

A
S THE WEATHER
turns colder, and the vegetation begins its long, slow retreat towards winter, so the wildlife of the parish becomes easier to see. This is partly due to necessity, as the lower temperatures and shorter days mean they must forage for food in a more concentrated timespan. The days of lazing around out of sight are over; time is now precious, and we human observers are reaping the benefit.

So one morning I get my best-ever view of a stoat – a ruthlessly effective mammalian predator. The sighting comes as I approach at thirty miles per hour, in the comfort of my car, rather than on my usual mode of transport, the bicycle. With stoats, all I usually see is a black-tipped tail vanishing into the long grass; or, on one memorable occasion, the momentary glimpse of the whole animal, frozen in mid-air, as it dived for cover. Today, though, this animal is far more cooperative, and I am able to watch it through binoculars (and a rather grubby windscreen) for upwards of a minute, which, when you are talking about this particular creature, feels like an age.

I take in its sheer splendour: the long and bushy tail; the chestnut-brown head, face and upperparts; small, rounded ears; and, most striking of all as it lollops along the edge of the roadside towards me, the soft, creamy-yellow underparts, extending from just beneath its chin to its belly. I hold my breath as it approaches; and then, aware that it is being watched, it returns to form and zips into the grass beneath the hedgerow, never to reappear.

O
NE COLD EVENING
I don my quilted jacket, gloves and hat, and cycle over to Rick and Heather’s home in Harp Road. Both come from well-known local farming families, and both have lived in the village all their lives; Rick still
farms
the fields and yard next to my home, shearing his sheep or holding his cattle in the pens there.

We discuss the many changes since his childhood, in the decades after the Second World War. His own father, Reg, started with almost nothing – just a handful of dairy cattle he took when he left his mother and stepfather’s farm at the age of sixteen. He and Rick’s mother worked hard to build up a successful business, growing and selling anything they could, so Rick and his sisters were enlisted as extra farmhands from an early age. He recalls hoeing the hard earth to grow swedes as winter food for the cattle; and how his father used to ride home on his bike, a milk pail balanced with one arm on his head.

In those days the majority of the farms around the village were home to a herd of dairy cattle. But the drop in the farm-gate price for milk, together with golden handshakes for getting out of milk production, eventually sounded the death knell for the local dairy industry. Today, of the fifteen or so working farms in the parish, only a handful produce milk. One of these, Perry Farm, is right behind our home; so we can still see the cows being taken to and from their pasture, every morning and evening.

Rick has seen many changes in the wildlife of the parish. Hares were once common; while buzzards – indeed any bird of prey apart from the kestrel – were a very unusual sight up to about ten years ago. House sparrows are still here in small flocks, but in those days
they
thronged the field over the road in their thousands, feeding on barley and flying up into the hedgerow when anyone came within sight.

On my ride home, I head along the back route of Northwick Road, which has been converted from a muddy drove into a tarmac lane within Rick’s and Heather’s lifetimes. Along the way I hear a curious sound, rather like a cross between a barking dog and the cry of the lapwing. It is a little owl, calling in the darkness, out of sight. I do see this elusive bird in the parish from time to time, as it mainly hunts by day; but did not know there was a territory here until now.

My nocturnal surprises are not quite over. As I reach the main road through the centre of the village, a movement along the pavement catches my eye. It is a badger, loping along towards me utterly unaware of my presence; until the light westerly breeze wafts my scent towards him. He immediately stops, lifts his nose, sniffs, then dives away into an adjacent garden.

Before I left, Rick had presented me with a gift: two brace of partridge. These are the French or red-legged rather than the native English grey variety, which he shot down on the levels a day or two ago. I bring them home, tucked into my cycle pannier, before hanging them on a hook by our back door.

This presents me with a dilemma: not a moral but a purely practical one. Although I wouldn’t choose to do it myself, I have no problem with my neighbours shooting
game
birds in season; provided that the birds are subsequently eaten. But as a townie by birth and upbringing, I have absolutely no clue how to pluck, draw and prepare a partridge.

Fortunately we have established a good relationship with our local butcher’s in Wedmore; so I give Mike a quick ring. Plucking them will take too long, he tells me; but he will have them skinned and the guts removed by Tuesday if I can pop them over. Before I do, I take a closer look at the subtle shades of their plumage and admire the way that the blacks, greys and chestnuts seem to merge into one another. Their scarlet feet, with their outsized toes for running rapidly across uneven ground, hang limp and motionless beneath their lifeless bodies.

A
LONG THE SOUTHERN
border of the parish, the River Brue meanders slowly but steadily westwards, passing through the hamlet of Bason Bridge, then beneath the M5 motorway. It skirts the town of Highbridge before, five miles or so from here, it finally reaches the sea. Well, not exactly the sea. The mouth of the Brue disgorges its waters into another, larger river, the Parrett, both then mingling with waters from the longest of all our rivers, the Severn, in Bridgwater Bay.

To reach the estuary I park in Clyce Road, named after the local word for a sluice gate. I cross a footbridge over
the
river, then a stile, and immediately the vista opens out from suburban sprawl into an open, windswept landscape.

It may be two hours after dawn, but a strong, full moon is still in the sky, while the autumn sun reflects a motley selection of pleasure boats in the water. As the river widens, the usual mallards and mute swans feed on the still, calm waters; while a touch of exotica is added by the presence of a little egret. No matter how often I see them, egrets always compel me to take a closer look. Wings bowed, neck hunched, legs trailing behind, this vision of pure white crosses over the river and seeks refuge in the reedbed on the far side.

The sound of distant herring gulls lends the scene a maritime air. But this is an illusion: the waters ahead of me are more river than sea, despite their breadth. One difference is the smell: Bridgwater Bay may look and sound like the sea, but it certainly doesn’t have the tangy, salty scent of true coastline.

Nevertheless, the meeting of these three rivers, all of which are tidal here, does create the ideal habitat for many coastal birds. In the far distance, over the shingle promontory of Steart, I can already see clouds of waders flashing pale and dark in the morning light. Small flocks of lapwings and curlews have come inland to feed on low-lying grassy fields while the tide is at its full height, covering their feeding areas for an hour or two. The curlews probe delicately into the muddy earth with that impossibly long, downcurved bill. Then, flushed by a
dog-walker
and his beast, they rise up into the air and wheel back towards the coast, uttering the evocative whistling call that gives them their name.

Another high-pitched sound, and a flash of colour and movement catches my eye: that little jewel of a bird, the kingfisher. It flies up the river channel, and I wait for it to disappear as they usually do. But to my delight it turns and lands on a small mooring post by the bank, a hundred yards or so before the river’s mouth, giving me a wonderful view.

To call a kingfisher ‘blue’ is to underrate both the colour and the bird; for it ranges through a dazzling palette of turquoise, green, electric-blue and indigo, depending on the angle at which the bird is facing, while the rusty orange underparts seem to reflect the sun itself. No doubt this bird will spend the winter here: their fishy diet makes kingfishers especially vulnerable to hard winters, but it can be sure that however harsh the weather becomes, these estuarine waters will not freeze over.

I pass through a modern, and rather unromantic, kissing gate; and a few yards further on, after one last meander, the Brue finally reaches its destination. The path bends southwards along the eastern side of the bay, parallel to the sea wall, and I stop to take in the scene before me: the Quantock Hills to my left, and the island of Steep Holm to the right.

Across the mouth of the River Parrett, vast flocks of waders are twisting and turning, moving like a single,
protean
organism. They flash black and white as they change direction in an instant, before returning to their high-tide roost on the shingle spit. Despite the chilly air, a thin layer of heat-haze forms ripples across the surface of the water; and this, combined with the movement of the birds, creates a bizarre optical effect.

As they come closer I can see that what I thought was one flock is, in fact, two: the smaller group being dunlins, and the larger, presumably, knots. It is liberating to be so far away that I can forget about looking at the detail of their plumage, and simply concentrate on their aesthetic qualities. As they loop, I relish the sheer pleasure of watching these birds, like vast shoals of fish, weaving complex patterns through the fresh morning air.

What better testimony than the scene in front of me, against the hare-brained, and fortunately now defunct, scheme to harness the tidal energy of the River Severn by building a massive barrage across its mouth. A barrage which, had it gone ahead, would have destroyed this unique habitat, and driven the birds away for ever.

Further along, on a rough patch of grass dotted with the odd pool of water, there are little flocks of starlings, meadow pipits and skylarks, all feeding on the damp, grassy area behind the sea wall. Accompanying them, to my surprise, is a rather late wheatear. This perky little bird bobs up and down on lichen-covered boulders, flicking its tail, and then running across the short, cropped grass. Tonight, if the skies remain clear, it will head off,
southwards
to Africa. The one I saw in the parish back in September will already be there.