Countryside Rangers Diary
January
The drive to survive goes up a gear as food becomes scarce and harder to find. With few leaves to block your view even the seemingly sterile landscape can surprise you with signs of life.
What's about in January?
- Frogspawn is one of the first signs of spring approaching
- Snowdrop leaves appear through the soil, their thickened tips providing them with an armoured surface as they push up through the frozen ground. By the end of the month the first flowers should be appearing.
- Hares, to the end of the month, will be starting their courtship.
- Raptors. The sparse winter vegetation makes it easier to spot the 'butchering blocks' or plucking posts of birds of prey such as goshawks and sparrowhawks. Look for prominent stumps, rocky outcrops and fencepost smattered with blood and feathers. The sparrowhawk and larger much rarer goshawk have similar distinctive profiles. Their long tail feathers and short rounded wings are designed for high manoeuvrability and short sharp hunting bursts. They are well suited to flying in dense foliage. With the UK population of more than 30,000 the sparrowhawk if one of our most numerous birds of prey, second only to the Kestrel.
- Mammal detectives. Find a tussocky place in the park away from areas where the deer have been grazing. If you pull back the thick rank grass and delve down to the stems you are certain to find the runs of common shrews and field voles. These runs are vigorously defended and patrolled in the breeding season but now food takes the priority. Fresh piles of droppings in latrine areas and stacks of grass clippings with edges that appear to have been cut with scissors indicate the presence of voles.
- Dead ash trees are the best places to look for the, shiny fruiting bodies of the fungus Daldinia concentrica, King Alfred's Cakes or cramp balls. While most toadstools shed spores by simply dropping them into the air this woody fungus fires them violently out. Bring one into the warm and place it under a table lamp, watch with a magnifying glass and you can easily spot small powdery eruptions all over the surface. The spores are fire out by a build up of pressure from flask shaped asci embedded in the surface of the fungus.
In the pink
In the next month or so we should know whether this is a 'waxwing winter' - a year when severe weather drives flocks of these beautiful birds out of Scandinavia and across to Britain in search of food. With their pink crests and red, waxy wing patches, these birds can bring a touch of the exotic to a dull day. Roving flocks can be seen on the lookout for berries. We have never had a recording of Waxwings in the park but they have been seen in previous years in Porthcawl and Pyle. Fingers crossed this year; it's always great to keep your eyes peeled for the more unusual species. If you see anything you are not sure of please let us know.