A year on Byron Road Part 2 - June - December

Gardens are our window onto nature, most of the time quite literally. Often dismissed as a place for just common birds, a place to overlook, we sometimes take them for granted. But gardens are our own private spaces ones we have full control of, compared to other places in the country. Gardens are the unsung champions of the bird world, all of them put together equal more in size than all the nature reserves in the country. Byron Road is a small slice of urban countryside, a completely normal place bird wise, yet a place that comes up with lots of surprises.

As with everywhere else in the world the seasons come and go on Byron Road, and the wildlife waxes and wanes with them. A non-descript street in the Whitton estate, Byron Road is the area I call home, a street that lies on the outskirts of Ipswich, a fairly non-descript town. Built of fairly anonymous housing, most of the buildings open up onto the road, concrete driveways offering little greenery, the main exception being a large tree directly outside my house. Its around the rear where the area shines as relatively large back gardens form one large slice of greenery.

Fledged BLACKBIRD. These black thrushes nest in the thick conifer hedge in my garden

As a shared area my garden is a bit bigger than most. Being suburban Ipswich the number of birds is smaller than a corresponding area of countryside. However that doesn't stop the birds coming and going. The most unusual sighting for the period was of three RING NECKED PARAKEETS, on the 24/11, an unusual bird for Ipswich. I was in the back garden when I heard their exotic call, familiar from my time in London, and running round to the front saw them in the large tree out there. Although common round London, the population in Ipswich numbers just four, so I was home to three quarters of the population. The four Ipswich birds usually spend their time round the cemeteries but can be quite  mobile. There is now talk of culling the UK population, a population that numbers over twenty thousand, so that's a lot of birds that are going to die. 

RED ADMRIAL. Only small numbers of a couple of species live in the garden.

As June comes round most of the birds have fledged young and the birds either leave or settle down for a second or third brood. The STARLINGS usually raise one brood before forming large post breeding flocks in late summer. However its not long before they leave, where they go I have no idea, but its away from Byron Road. They return around late September with numbers building up until they reach several hundred with birds lining the chimney pots on the street, and I often see lots of them perched on a tree in my garden. Their whistle calls are drowned out by the sound of cars going passed, and I often dream of seeing a rose coloured starling amongst them, I'm sure one day I will.

HOUSE SPARROWS bickering over their place on the feeders

I don't feed the birds during Summer, there's plenty of natural food available for them, but come Autumn I start to put food out again. The main birds who really take advantage of this free food are the HOUSE SPARROWS. With a flock of around thirty living within an area of a couple of houses, including my own. The birds fly into the nearby conifer hedge, perch there waiting their turn while one or two feast on the feeders. They are quite sensitive to change, and if I change the brand of bird seed I put out, it may take them several days to pick up the nerve to feed again. Occasionally a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER would visit to peck at the peanuts and the TITS are also quite partial to them as well.

The young crow in the garden

A pair of CARRION CROWS are resident in the area, nesting each year in a different location. This year (2020) a pair nested in the neighbouring, tall, eucalyptus tree. The pair raised two young this year, which is pretty normal. However one of them had a bit of trouble. The poor crow hung around the garden for several weeks, and didn't seem to be able to fly, except for a kind of pheasant type flight up to the top of a fence post. For that time it was a real character in the garden, constantly calling out to its parents to feed it with the most raucous cry. After a fortnight it had disappeared, whether it had learned to fly or had been caught by a cat, who knows, but it was most missed.

Two HOUSE SPARROWS waiting for their go on the feeders

In the beginning of July a large passage of SWIFTS was seen over the garden with more than 40 present screeching in the skies over Byron Road. This coincided with movements all over the country, when large flocks were seen at migration watchpoints. The number of swifts that live over Whitton is quite small, so it was nice to see this migration. One of our first birds to leave, the swifts vacate the skies above come early August.

My three allotment beds

Having a relatively boring garden, a lot of grass, I decided to do something with it. I wanted to do two things, create space for wildlife and grow my own food. I first started a allotment in 2017, with one raised bed, until I added another two over the years, to create three areas to grow vegetables. I also added tomatoes, in grow bags and raspberries bushes planted into the ground. I have a rotation of potatoes, carrots and parsnips, and broad beans in the three veg beds. In late August, I planted some cabbages, with the aim of harvesting them a couple of months later. These cabbages then became infested with LARGE WHITE CATERPILLARS, large insects that totally decimated the cabbages, hence their alternative name of cabbage white. In late July a second emergence of HOLLY BLUES occurred although less number than earlier in the year. The large overgrown clumps of ivy in the garden create a great place for these lovely little insects to live out their lives. On 15 September a huge HORNET was present in the garden which was a real surprise as it perched on one of my raspberry bushes.

LARGE WHITE CATERPILLARS eating my cabbages

In my garden I have grown a wildflower meadow, by creating an area of bare ground and sowing with meadow flower seeds. Started in 2017, it has taken a while to get established, but has come into its own in 2020. In June the area became overgrown with OXEYE DAISIES, with many flowers present, which were replaced by WILD CARROT a month later, a kind of cow parsley type flower.

OXEYE DAISIES growing in my wildflower garden

2019 I created a scarecrow from mainly local sources, except for the gas mask which I got online. The ground in my garden however, has only a shallow top soil which grows over a hard sub surface. This  meant I couldn't dig him into the ground, only put him in a large pot, which kept getting blown over every time we had a storm. In 2020 I remade him, same clothes, different gas mask (I like gas masks), dug the pot as far into the ground as possible and created support from bamboo canes which worked and he styed upright, until after a heavy storm, the timber he was attached to snapped. Every year it seems I need to make a new scarecrow. Aside from that I wanted to create a pond for the garden. I really wanted a bath tub for this as I thought it would look cool. I managed, through a friend of a neighbour, to get hold of one for free although at the moment it still stands empty as I prepare to plant in the Spring.

Spider with its ladybird prey

The new guidance for use of land states that 30% of our land must go to wildlife conservation and that include gardens as much as the general countryside. Attracting wildlife is easy, no matter where you live, and as you can see, one non-descript suburban garden can encourage a lot of wildlife. It doesn't even take much effort to attract wildlife, as most wild species crave unmanaged, overgrown areas of land, so just by leaving an area of uncut grass, one can go some way to being beneficial to wildlife. And by creating land for wildlife, the benefits of being amongst nature is beyond measure.

Christchurch Park - Winter 2020/21

Christchurch is the crown jewel of Ipswich parks, and one of the best urban parks in the country. An undulating area of parkland, Christchurch forms a large slice of greenery in a built up area. With many old gnarled trees, an arboretum and the Wilderness Pond, Christchurch is an important area for birds within Ipswich. Whenever I'm in town I drop into the park to see the fluctuations in birdlife, and right now it is very much mid winter, with certain areas seeing an influx of birds.

Many birds call this place home, birds which are so used to humans, they have become very tame providing good opportunities for photography. And for a lot of people this park is their main access to nature, whether it be feeding the ducks or taking a photo of Matilda the owl, and for that its very important to spread the value of nature.

There is often a CORMARANT on the fallen tree in the Wilderness Pond

When it comes to birds, the Wilderness Pond is the go-to place in the park. Probably the best bird watching site in Ipswich, this small lake is home to an assortment of mongrel MALLARDS, many CANADA GEESE and of course the MANDARINS. By a mile our most colourful of birds this is the main Suffolk site for this beautiful duck, a naturalised bird from China, that has found its niche, as its the only English duck to nest in trees. This winter the number of mandarins has been quite low with just the three birds present, usually numbers are in the early double digits. The many wooded islands provide safe nesting for the wildfowl on the lake. On the 28/12 a LITTLE GREBE was present, in 2019 this species tried to nest here but failed, so fingers crossed this dabchick will stay for the summer.

MATILDA falling asleep in her hole in the tree

Away from the Wilderness Pond, the park is a large area of rolling grasslands with many old trees. Situated on the top of one of these ancient gnarled sentinels is what is the country's, or maybe even the world's, most famous wild TAWNY OWL. Her name is MATILDA, thought to be the daughter of another famous owl, MABLE. Uniquely for an owl this bird sits up in a hole at the top of a tree in broad daylight, when usually they stay under thick cover. As a result she is very popular and there are often many people congregated under her tree taking photos, which doesn't seem to faze the owl in any way.

The owl is only present in winter, and by mid February had disappeared.

There are several pairs of CANADA GEESE on the Wilderness Pond

The park is home to many of the birds associated with parkland, with the likes of STOCK DOVES, MISTLE THRUSHES and GREEN WOODPECKERS being common. Although present in good numbers being in an urbanised place their numbers are lower than out in the countryside, as they are cut off by the urban desert that surrounds the park, created  by human habitation. Usually a couple of GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS start to drum at this time of the year, their rattling sound echoing out across the park.

Winter though still has the country in its grip and on the 17/2 a large flock of 50 REDWINGS were present, at the top of the park, near the playground, feeding on the soft mud. 

This brood of MALLARDS was born in mid November, and surprisingly five have managed to grow to near adulthood.

Urban parks can be very important, not just for wildlife but also for the many people who use them. Christchurch is a very well maintained park, as are most of the parks within Ipswich, the town has a very enlightened attitude to its green areas. Christchurch park is the best place in Suffolk to connect with MANDARINS and TAWNY OWL, a visit in early January is a guaranteed tick for the year list of those species. So expert or beginner, all can appreciate what the town has in this oasis of greenery, and just shows that nature is important for everyone.

Staveton Thicks - 26/12/2020

There are some really beautiful areas in Suffolk, mystical ancient places, places from way beyond human civilisation, places with roots that lead to something much deeper. Staveton Thicks is one of those places, a forest full of ancient gnarled trees, a place that has survived for hundreds of years despite everything going on in the land around. Somehow Staveon still lives, and not just some token little forest, this place is large. It is not a nature reserve, no one who owns it is a charity, this is part of the working countryside. Although I don't normally gush like this, and I don't want to appear all hippy-dippy, its jut so difficult to describe in words what aura this place exudes.

The trees are the stars of Staverton. Many hundreds of years old, they have been allowed to develop into their own work of art. Each specimen is made up of unique tortured shapes which writhe beneath the surface of bark giving each tree a concept of movement despite standing still.

There are two types of habitat present here, ancient woodland with its thick layers of woodland growth, and wood pasture, which is open grazed woodlands with no understorey. Wood pasture once a common habitat is now extremely rare, the best example of this habitat is found in the New Forest, where commoner livestock graze open woodland. There aren't many examples of it in Suffolk, which makes finally visiting Staveton so interesting. The one concern for this habitat is a lack of young trees present in the wood pasture. This means when these old trees do die, there aren't any younger trees to replace them.

The woodlands in winter can be very quiet. A far cry from the bustling life of Spring, woods in the colder months can feel desolate and lonely with only the odd winter THRUSH present. There was a small amount of half hearted chirping in the forest but this wasn't a good time to see woodland birds.

Picture of the many old trees in the forest

Beyond the forest there are some man made pools, which may have been old fish ponds for the nearby abbey. They were brimming with life, something unexpected after walking through the forest. Amongst the 40 or so TEAL present, there were singles of GADWALL and MALLARD, and bird of the day, a female HOODED MERGANSER. Yes, I had to take a double take with that, but I know this species well as one hung out in Ipswich about a year ago, a male, but it spent some time in eclipse plumage. That bird in Ipswich was ringed, but however this one today was not, whether its a genuine wild bird or an escape, who can tell, and no one will quite accept it. Aside from the ducks also present fishing in a ditch was a GREAT WHITE EGRET, which I unintentionally spooked into flight, they are just getting everywhere now, but still a surprise to see here.

A pig field bordered the woods. I love pigs, they are so charismatic, but in turn they do destroy the land they live on.

I really thought I knew every place in this great county of mine but today I had my eyes fully opened. There must be many such strange and mystical places like this across the country, ancient places that somehow survived the ravages raged across our countryside. Maybe it is just a block of green on the map blandly indicating a hidden gateway to new worlds. So get out there, get exploring and find your own Staveton.