Its been a fairly underwhelming Spring with nothing remarkable noticed on the area of farmland I call the Local Patch. Just wondering round the arable fields, patting the occasional horse on the head, I notice how little wildlife there is in the general countryside. Even in the relatively short time I've been visiting the Patch, birds have been declining. This Spring was marked by the complete disappearance of SWALLOWS, when there should have been small flocks quartering the Suffolk Punch Field and the Reservoir. Time will tell if its just a blip or whether our wildlife is really disappearing at a massive and shocking rate.
As with everyone, leading a busy life I wasn't able to visit the Patch as much as I wanted coming and going every couple of weeks, so this isn't as comprehensive a report as I wanted.
Weather
Spring, like last year, was dry, following on from the driest Winter on record. The Pond had dried up and the Stream was running at late Summer levels, barely a trickle at times. But unlike last Spring it was hot, with some really scorching days. There would be the occasional rain, heavy downpours for a random day or so, but would have little effect, barely wetting the hard ground.
Despite having had none all winter, on 31/3 we had a light snow storm, as well as heavy hail. Nothing hinted that this would happen, nor would we have known as we had hot weather before and after. Is this climate change, who knows, but this combination of hot weather followed by cold followed by hot has deadly effects in Spring. Newly emerged insects may die off affecting bird populations, birds busy starting to nest may be caught out and stop. As always if our wildlife was at normal levels they would recover, but with our countryside so depleted of wildlife, it seems to be another nail in the coffin.
Unusual Sightings
Although it was a quiet Spring there were several unusual sightings. I had one first for the Patch in a nice male REED BUNTING by the Reservoir. Its an unusual sighting here given the fact there are no marshes on the Patch, let alone any reeds to attract this species. I only ever get a couple of new Patch ticks a year, so this record was something to be savoured. A RED KITE flew over my garden on several dates, which I'm guessing is the same bird, a great bird, that has made a massive comeback in this country due to reintroductions, and if one has made into suburban Ipswich, then they truly have cornered everywhere. Perhaps the strangest sighting this Spring, was on 17/3. While waiting for a bus on Shakespeare Road, a WOODCOCK flew over me heading east just over the houses. Seeing the bird, in a built up area, miles from the nearest wood it would call home, was just so amazing and just confirms why even for a man who has birded all his life, there are always surprises. The local bird recorder told me there are only single sightings of this bird in Ipswich at this time of year, which made the sighting so much better.
Rede Wood
On the very, very outer limits, lies the only true area of woodland on the Patch, Rede Wood. This is an ancient wood, a land that has been covered this way for at least five hundred years. Ancient woodlands are like the cathedrals of our wild countryside, awe inspiring, and just so precious, something that has survived against all the odds. Visiting this wood makes it just so great to get away from it all, to dose myself in bird song and breathe in the clean oxygen replenished air. It is an area of coppice, with the trees cut back to a stump every few years, creating a scrubby effect, with a few standard trees left to grow tall.
Having a nice scrubby, brambly, ground layer woodland plants weren't growing in profusion, growing in the scattered open spaces. When I visited on 26/3 several flowers were starting to appear, woodland flowers grow earlier than grassland ones, because they have to time it right when there are no leaves on the trees, to maximise the sunlight they receive. WOOD ANEMONES, PRIMROSES and DOG'S VIOLETS were all out in bloom. Although not the most flamboyant of flowers, DOG'S MERCURY was out in profusion colouring the ground beneath the coppice stools a bright green.
Being a fairly small wood Rede Wood doesn't harbour any of the real woodland specialist birds. Common birds of trees and bushes were plentiful, with a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER drumming and a TREECREEPER seen. A pair of BUZZARDS nest in the woods, a second pair of the Patch, aside from the Suffolk Punch Field birds, which shows just how successful these birds can be if not hunted to extinction as they were in Suffolk. Its amazing to think that at the dawn of the millennium there were no breeding buzzards in Suffolk at all.
Firsts for the year.
One of the thrills of Spring is finding the first of the year, the earliest date that a bird has returned to the Patch from their wintering grounds. There is usually a small trickle to begin with in March before April opens the floodgates and migration is in fall swing, before things start to calm down as you get into May.
The first migrant back is the CHIFFCHAFF, who returned to the Patch on the 14/3, and it wasn't long before their 'chiffchaff' song could be heard from every area of tree cover. BLACKCAPS are always usually the second back, with one on 7/4, around the usual time, and although not as common as chiffchaffs, there were soon plenty of birds singing their scratchy song from the tall, scrubby areas.
WHITETHROATS were pleasantly early this year, the earliest I've ever seen on the Patch. A bird was singing from a hedge on First Field, a place where ever since I started birding here nearly ten years ago, a bird has been on territory every year. Of course its not been the same bird, they don't live that long, but maybe birds that have been reared here have returned to breed in the place they were born. Its amazing how such small things can have so complex understanding within them. The bird I first recorded on 14/4 was only a day later than the first record of the year for Suffolk, so if I had turned up a couple of days earlier, I might have had the first record for the county. On a different note my first LESSER WHITETHROAT didn't show until 24/5, a very late date, although I hadn't been looking in the place it was singing from for a while.
As I have previously stated SWALLOWS never turned up, but the first SWIFTS were a bit late on 10/5, with only small numbers hawking for insects over the fields. Its a bird that is sadly slowly disappearing over the skies of Ipswich, which is a shame because I love just looking up from my garden to see them dashing around the skies high overhead.
Other Birds
There was the usual cast of birds, old familiars who kept me company on my rambles around this area of countryside. The pair of BUZZARDS that nest in the woodland of Suffolk Punch Field, the many SKYLARKS rising over the arable fields in song, the flocks of LINNETS and GOLDFINCHES chirruping by in flight. YELLOWHAMMERS now seem set for extinction on the Patch, with few birds returning to nest this year. It wasn't too long ago when there were flocks of fifty birds wintering in the area, why they have crashed so quickly, is a mystery to me.
For the first time in years MALLARDS have nested on the RESERVOIR, with a nice brood of little ducklings swimming around with their mother. For a long time there was a resident flock of eight GREYLAGS, who set up home next to the Pond, but for some reason vanished at one point. A sighting of four birds had me in hope they would return, but they didn't stay long, and had disappeared by the time I came back.
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