Help from the Gurkhas

It’s been a long time coming, and I really find it hard to believe, but I’m out searching for breeding red kites on Gower. They’ve been seen in this northeast corner several times this spring, but may have been prospecting for some time. I’ve noticed them in winter, but assumed that they were wanderers.

The success story of the red kite is well known. In Wales there was no need for reintroductions, and we probably now have several hundred breeding pairs. It’s taken years, but with their rapid spread, it’s inevitable they would eventually colonise these southern shores. I probably won’t find the nest, and I may not even see them today, but they’re over the woods and estuary regularly, and have caused much local excitement. There are heated arguments about publicising their presence in case it attracts the attention of egg collectors. This hobby from the Victorian age is in decline, and in any case with red kites so common now, any self-respecting egger would have stolen one for his collection a long time ago.

How times have changed, thirty-five years ago I spent hours sitting under trees in mid-Wales guarding precious nests. The trunks were greased, sometimes wired, and we even employed the help of the Gurkhas at one point. It was necessary at the time, but thankfully these magnificent birds are now able to look after themselves whilst we devote attention to restoring other lost wildlife. Many would argue that although kites were a worthy cause, it might have been better to concentrate on the wider countryside rather than on a few iconic species. Protecting avocets, red kites, peregrines, ospreys and the like attracted the public’s attention. Organisations such as the RSPB gained profile, and it brought gained them valuable members, but at the same time skylarks, yellowhammers and other common species declined dramatically, and are now in serious trouble.

Yellow Turns to Blue

There’s nothing quite like the scent of walking through a bluebell wood in early morning after overnight rain. It’s a unique part of our natural heritage, which we perhaps take for granted. But we must guard this privilege; there are those who dig up the bulbs for horticulture, and many have gone. I wonder how many ‘Bluebell Woods’ there are in Britain and I suspect we all have our favourite. The nearest and best around here is part of a local park. Landscape gardeners created Clyne Park from oak woodland more than a century ago, but left natural parts untouched, which is a most beautiful bluebell wood. Visitors flock to see the flowers, children learn about the scent, and it’s a photographers dream. Over many years I’ve never seen anyone seriously picking them. The park is also famed for its azaleas, forming contrasting borders of bizarre colours against the gentle mix of blues and yellows of the wildwood. There’s more than visual beauty here, there’s a special atmosphere as well. Even though I’m in the suburbs of Swansea, I’m surrounded by echoing songs of song thrushes, blackbirds, blackcaps and drumming woodpeckers, and could be deep in the countryside.

Set above the bay the view from the top of the park through avenues of great trees towards the sea beyond is breathtaking. Many trees are exotics, brought from all corners of the globe by our industrious forefathers and are all in their spring best, but standing out is a massive isolated beech at least 40 meters high, peerless in glorious light green.

Around the park as celandines fade, uncut hedgerow banks are turning from yellow to blue, pink and white. Bluebells, red campion attracting orange tip butterflies and the whites of wild garlic are slowly replacing the early colours of spring. The green shoots of foxgloves are showing through as well, and it won’t be long before they too add more delicate pinks. The whole park will soon be a riot of colour, skilfully managed to blend native and exotic plants from all over the world, providing a peaceful retreat for locals and visitors alike.

Incoming Tide

It’s been cold lately, more like March than May, and with a stiff wind from the northeast, it’s time for woolly hats and gloves again. Wader migration is at its height, and a high neap time is ideal for getting close. Way out on the mud they gradually appear as the tide pushes them ever nearer. Whimbrels, always in small groups, fly in to bath in the brackish stream then retreat to roost on the sandbar. Bar-tailed godwits, one or two beginning to acquire summer dress, feed by the tide line with oystercatchers and a few knot. Dunlins, most in fresh summer plumage with rich rusty backs, pure white under parts and jet-black bellies, dazzle in the bright sunlight, urgently probing the mud with rapid stabs. Gone are their drab winter tones to reveal just what a beautiful bird this is in summer. As one, and for no apparent reason, they suddenly fly off, arc across the sea and return to the same spot. Only the dunlins do this, nearby silver sanderlings stay put, scurrying along the shoreline ignoring their neighbours.

The encroaching tide slowly shuffles the gulls towards the shore revealing two grey plovers, one in all its summer glory. Only in spring and autumn do we get the chance to see what a really stunning bird this is. Black-bellied plover is its American name, but at this time, and in this light, it might well have been called silver plover. The contrasting black, white and silver make it the star of the shore.

As if by magic, out of the shuffling pack pop two pure white sandwich terns bathing at the water’s edge; I can’t believe I missed them. I’ve just a few minutes to make out the yellow tips on their bills before they’re off towards Mumbles  Lighthouse.

Nicholaston

A footpath from the main South Gower Road leads across a field into the back of Nicholaston Wood, and thence down to the vast dune system stretching the full length of Oxwich Bay. I emerge from the dappled light of the wood into brightness. After a fresh, dewy morning the sun is already high in the sky, quickly burning off the last droplets of water on the thick grass. In May the unfarmed parts of Gower burst with flowers, and the dune slacks around the bay are wonderful. I’m surrounded by the yellows of common rock rose, deep magenta of bloody cranesbill, purples of basil thyme, the exotic shapes and shades of early purple orchids, and much more.

Years ago in the deeper dune slacks, ringed plovers nested, but increased tourism finally drove them away. I look in hope, but know it’s in vain. A footpath forged by ponies, attracts a shining male green lizard basking in the increasing heat of the morning. Sluggish hairy dragonflies cling onto herb robert flowers growing in one of the wetter dunes lacks, their beautifully patterned wings glistening in the sunshine. Meadow brown and wall butterflies are already on the wing, and orange tips, plentiful this spring, drift across from the marsh. Small and green veined whites are quick and not easy to separate, but I’ll get more skilful as the summer advances.

It’s already 8 o’clock and I’ve seen nobody; the only sign of people are distant sounds of cars. I finally bump into a couple of keen botanists from London; they recognise many more plants than I’ll ever know, and wax lyrical about the marsh and its wildlife. I lived in London during my student days many years ago and still love it, but have known for decades that moving to Gower was the best thing I ever did.

Blindingly Obvious

We often sit at the end of a lonely track overlooking the Burry estuary; there’s peace here, few people pass, and the view out across the marsh is tranquil. After refreshing rain, swallows skim the ground, and there are blackbirds and chiffchaffs singing in the wood on the escarpment behind. But that’s about all. Although the marsh is protected as part of the Burry Estuary Ramsar site, the wood is not. Owned by a local farmer, the mature trees serve as perfect shelter for his sheep, which graze freely on the salt marsh. The effect of years of constant sheep damage is dramatic. Apart from an occasional bramble patch, the woodland floor is devoid of regeneration, and only dead ivy-covered branches litter the ground.

Part of a series of nature reserves running along the edge of the estuary, Cwm Ivy Wood, a similar escarpment woodland a little way to the west is owned and managed by the Wildlife Trust and could hardly be more different. The rich understory, coppiced in places, provides an environment diverse in plants, birds and insects, and there is life everywhere. Chiffchaffs, willow warblers, blackcaps and a full suite of common resident birds sing, and I watch long-tailed tits adding feathers to a delicate nest in flowering blackthorn. Spring flowers are abundant too; celandines, wood anemones, primroses, violets and bluebells are beginning to show, a promise of what’s to come.

A recent study in Suffolk has demonstrated the devastating effects increasing deer populations can have on the numbers of breeding nightingales and other woodland species. It’s not rocket science, and some would say the results are blindingly obvious, but these surveys need to be done. Sheep are easier to fence out, and we have known the adverse effects of ‘woolly maggots’ in Wales for generations. The hope is that deer populations won’t explode here as well.

First Week of May

It’s that most beautiful time of year, when new leaves are on the trees. In the first week of May it’s one woodland view in particular that does it for me. Seen in early morning sunlight from the marsh road at Oxwich, the knobbly canopy of mostly oak, beech and copper beech by Penrice Castle resembles tropical rainforest. Leaning away from the prevailing westerly winds, newly opening oaks add tints of brown, creating a mosaic of spring beauty that imprints deeply into my soul each year. It won’t last long, and will fuse into more uniform green in less than a couple of weeks.

Looking the other way is a carpeted acre of precious yellow, with a wash of blue, a field of oxlips and bluebells like no other I know. Guarded by hedgerows of singing willow warblers, each of the many thousands of delicate flowers is an icon of British spring. Oxlips, like cowslips, were so called in the 16^th century, when it was noticed they grew well in the vicinity of cowpats. They’ve recovered well in this field after years of careful management. Once a field of bracken, regular mowing transformed the meadow into a sea of wildflowers, which continues to spread. Nature can recover if given half a chance.

In these two views I see nothing rare, beauty lies in the everyday things around us, and all we need to do is look. Gilbert White in the 18th century showed us the way, and how to appreciate the common things in the countryside. His 'Natural History of Selborne' is never far from my mind. 

The first day of the month usually brings swifts back into my life, and they’re a few days late this year, but house martins are already over the marsh and their aerial companions  won't be long now.

Three Gower Icons

Apart from choughs and Dartford warblers, both of which are becoming reasonably common, we don’t have any rare breeding birds on the cliffs. It’s always the common things that are precious to me, and three birds stand out as Gower icons. It’s best to sit on the tightly packed turf on one of the higher paths to watch stonechats. Rarely still, they don’t sing much, and their song can sometimes be confused with dunnocks, but it’s the rattling scratchy stone-like calls that give them away. Probably the most iconic of our coastal birds, they sum up what it is to live by this most beautiful coastline. Males are astonishingly smart, but can vary so much; the degree of black on the head, and the extent of white on the collar distinguish individuals, but the jet-black bill, legs and eyes are constant. The pair below has a nest; it’s near, almost certainly low in thick gorse a little way down the cliff. Both parents quickly decide I’m no real threat and more or less ignore me as they feed their hungry young.

Rock pipits are Gower icons too, and I’ve long promised I will one day count the number of breeding pairs we have along the south coast. Smokey-grey and slightly larger than their meadow pipit cousins, they go mostly unnoticed by walkers on the cliff paths. Beginning just above the height of the path, a singing male parachutes down to the rocky shore, but I see no appreciative female.

Yellowhammers are the last of my three small icons, but alas they’re scarce now.   Most sing later in the summer, but to hear ‘a little bit of bread and no cheese’ from the tops of gorse, or hedgerow is becoming a rare event. A generation ago we were blessed with dozens along the cliffs, but there are none here today. Grain has been put out at various locations in winter in an attempt to increase numbers, but even so their demise continues. The thought of Gower without yellowhammers singing in summer is hard to imagine, but is now a real possibility.