Evening visit to St. Nicholas Church and surrounding areas – 10th July 2020

Date: 10th July 2020

Time: from 9:00 p.m.

Weather: dry, setting sun, dark, 16°C

My visits to the site have generally been very early in the morning but on my evening visit on 8th June 2020 I saw both Badger and Red Fox.

Whilst I have been seeing Red Foxes regularly on my morning visits, I decided today to make another evening visit in the hope of seeing Badgers. I left home with one pocket full of dog biscuits for the former and another pocket full of peanuts for the latter 😀.

When I arrived on site, I scattered the “goodies” (otherwise known as bait 😀) in appropriate locations that I best judged would encourage the Red Foxes and Badgers respectively.

As the sun set in the west, I settled down in a suitable watching location being mindful of the wind direction. Badgers in particular are very wary when they emerge from their setts for their nightly ramblings and they have an excellent sense of smell.

Within just a few minutes of sitting down, I saw 2 Red Fox cubs emerge from the hedge together. Although the sun had set, it was still quite light at 9:15 p.m. and one of the cubs did spot me fairly quickly, briefly stared back and then bolted back in to cover. Its sibling quickly followed.

Just 5 minutes later I had a brief view of what I think was one of the Red Fox cubs run across the grassy strip that runs parallel to Church Hill down to St. Nicholas Lane followed by similar sightings at 9:40 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.

However, the main action, which was amazing to watch albeit in gathering darkness, was from 10:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

For the first 15 minutes of this period of eye strain watching, I was able to watch all 4 Red Fox cubs, again in the same grassy strip. I think I ran out of adjectives to describe what I saw: running, tumbling, leaping, pouncing, play fighting, "geckering" …..

For the last 15 minutes when it was almost completely dark other than a bit of light shed by the street lights, I continued to see either a single or 2 Red Fox cubs in the same area. On the occasions that I saw 2 together, the same adjectives need to be applied.

What about the Badgers? Ah, yes, the Badgers. I didn’t see any! The location that I had picked for watching out for them emerge from the sett entrance did not actually give me a view of that sett entrance. However, the location from where I had seen them on 8th June 2020 would not have been appropriate given the wind direction. Therefore, there is more work to be done with them .... but I bet they ate the peanuts that I put down for them 😀.

As I walked back home down Church Hill, I saw at least 2 Pipistrelles hunting for moths and other insects attracted to the street lights. As I observed in my blog post on 4th April 2020:

The Common Pipistrelle is a small microbat whose very large range extends across most of Europe and beyond. It is one of the most common bat species in the UK. However, there is a problem in specifically identifying Common Pipistrelle with confidence. In 1999, it was split into 2 species on the basis of different frequency echo location calls. The Common Pipistrelle makes a call at 45 kHz whilst the Soprano Pipistrelle makes a call at 55 kHz.

The 2 species can only be confidently identified by very subtle differences in size and appearance, DNA analysis and sonograms from bat detectors.

Good luck with that then in rapidly fading light, no science laboratory at home and no bat detector!

I have also since learnt that the 2 Pipistrelle species don't just have differing echo location signatures and genetic divergence. They also have different shaped and different coloured penises .... and the answer is "no, I didn't check" before anyone asks 😀.

Therefore, the bats that I saw will again need to be recorded as “Pipistrelle sp.”.

With regard to birds, I heard a Song Thrush singing as I walked up Church Hill at the start of my visit and I heard 2 “screaming” Swifts and saw 100+ gulls (Herring Gulls or Lesser Black-backed Gulls or a mix of both) flying over and heading east (this is a regular occurrence on most evenings which I see from my flat).

On the non-wildlife front, Saturn shone brightly in the south east.

Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):

Red Fox

Pipistrelle sp.

Song Thrush

Swift

Gull sp.

Site totals to date:

Birds = 46

Mammals = 4

Butterflies = 18

Dragonflies and damselflies = 5

Reptiles = 1

💚🦆 🦉 🌼 🌳💚

Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature