Driving home yesterday evening, I was listening to a nature programme and they were talking about insects. This warm dry spring has been very good for them, it seems. They said that there are a lot of cockchafers around this year. I was going to post a picture of one, but it occurs to me that some of you really don’t like bugs, so I won’t.
Cockchafer is, of course, the best and most amusing bug name of any and all, ever. They are also known as May Bugs and, in this part of the country anyway, as Billy Witches. They are big, slow, blundering beetles. I remember once, when we lived in Lowestoft, all going for a stroll along Pakefield cliffs and a whole swarm of them came flying along. They kept flying into us and it wasn’t pleasant at all, they tend to stick rather and are so heavy they quite hurt. They don’t seem to have the sense to avoid you and there were on that occasion far too many to be able to dodge them. Weeza shared a house with a friend’s brother in Norwich for a while (they just shared the house and the rent, they weren’t romantically linked) and he had a cockchafer phobia. Weeza said that his sisters teased him about it, usually by finding one and threatening him with it. It is a pleasure to sisters, it seems, to watch their elder brother in a state of panic.
Although this dry weather is not good for birds that eat worms or snails, it’s very good for birds that eat insects and that is what we have been noticing. There are always a lot of nesting birds around here mind you, we have the sort of garden and environment that encourages them. When the Sage was at the AGM of the Common owners a week or two ago, they had invited a bird expert who works for a naturalist organisation – I can’t remember which, and the Sage has squirrelled away his business card somewhere – and he invited the chap, whose name is Steve, to come and look around here and give advice on encouraging birds even more. We have a few fields and Steve was very enthusiastic. The one behind the house, there is a diagonal row of small trees – hedge plants that have grown into trees really, such as hawthorn – which he liked very much, and when they went over to the other field, he was even happier. It is untouched, although grazed by sheep, and wildlife is completely undisturbed. He said that he will come back at dawn one day soon to do a bird count and give us a list of the species he sees.
8 comments:
Can I suggest that Steve could assist Dave in enticing more birds to his lair?
I take it your school was the one featured in the online EDP today?
I like them small feather balls very much - except when they start to scream around four in the morning and I want to find sleep.
What are they actually talking about? "Hey, this worm is old!" "And I tell you at 39° full speed with legs bungling ... " "And I TOLD the blackbird just to ..." noisy basteds ...
Well, the birds that eat slugs and snails can come my way. I've plenty to go round.
We have Blackbird chicks, Robin chicks and Blue tit chicks everywhere!
If Dave would like to come along at dawn and photograph the birds, he would be very welcome. I might even cook him some breakfast afterwards.
Yes, it was. That is, it was in the real EDP.
The pheasants are the noisiest around here, Mago. And the pigeons and doves when they coo down the bedroom chimney. Between birds and frogs, we don't have too much problem with slugs and snails. Although our ground is very dry at present, so it's not surprising I haven't seen many.
It's a brilliant time of year, isn't it, John? Although you're a bit ahead of us, the baby birds are still being fed in their nests and I haven't seen them about yet.
We received a parking ticket on Pakefield Cliffs this weekend. Bastards.
No! Mean buggers. We lived there at the time, the big house next but one from the church.
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