SS15 wildlife watching: Visit to St. Nicholas Church and surrounding areas

Date: 4th February 2021

Time: from 11 a.m.

Weather: dry, cloudy/sunny, light wind, 6°C to 8°C

For my visit to the site today, I had a small window of opportunity between the early morning thick mist and the heavy rain from lunchtime.

It was a much warmer day than lately and it definitely had a feel of the approaching spring with quite a few flowers emerging in the cemetery (especially daffodils) and a noticeable increase in the amount of birdsong and the number of species now singing including Song Thrush, Robin, Wren, Dunnock, Great Tit and Blue Tit. It will only be a few more weeks and they will be joined by the returning Chiffchaffs and then a bit later by Blackcaps.

I accessed the site as usual via the track from Larkins Tyres which continues to surpass itself with the amount of ground water and mud. If we receive much more rain, I am going to need to buy some chest-high waders!

There were 2 main highlights from my visit this morning:

Firstly, I added Goldcrest to my year site list with the sighting of 2 brightly coloured males in the woodland along the track from the south east corner of the cemetery to Church Hill. Both birds were silent but there was much aggressive posturing and chasing going on but no sign of a female that I could see.

Secondly, along the track from Larkins Tyres, I saw a male Chaffinch. I have already seen this species on 2 occasions during 2021 (1 female on 9th January and 3 females together on 21st January) so this is definitely proving to be a good year so far for a species that I only occasionally see.

I also heard and then saw a Green Woodpecker in the wooded area at the extreme eastern end of the cemetery. Usually my views of this species are typically a bird feeding on the ground but today I had a good view of one clinging to one of the trees having flown in to the area.

With regard to mammals, I saw 7 Grey Squirrels this morning: 3 along or from the track from Larkins Tyres, 2 in the wooded area at the end of the track and 2 in the wooded area at the extreme eastern end of the cemetery.

I have not seen any Badgers at the site since 7th October 2020. My last attempt was on 7th November 2020 when there was absolutely no chance of seeing them due to appalling disturbance caused by fireworks being let off in close proximity to the sett. With the onset of the colder winter weather when Badgers are less active, I have not made any further effort since.

On 15th December 2020, I noticed that the extensive spoil heap outside one of the Badger sett entrances/exits had been flattened and pushed back towards the actual hole, together with some other disturbance in the vicinity. I have no idea if this was intentional or not but at least the hole was not blocked up.

On a quick walk through the site a few days ago, I placed a stick over this hole and also over a couple of holes in front of the hedge immediately above this area where I saw Badgers emerging on my evening visits last year. In addition, I discovered a new hole with a small spoil heap in close proximity so I placed a stick here too.

Sticks placed like this don’t cause any obstruction to Badgers given how robust and strong they are but they do provide an obvious signal of any activity at a particular hole since they either remain undisturbed or are pushed out of the way as the animal uses it.

On today’s visit, I saw that the sticks remained in place at the older holes that I was familiar with but the one at the new hole had been pushed out of the way. I therefore have a new confirmed Badger watching location to visit on suitable nights in the coming weeks.

Badger cubs are usually born during the period from mid-January to mid-March and they emerge from their setts at around 8 weeks of age. After discovering the sett, I started regular Badger watching at the site from 8th June 2020 and during the early weeks after that I failed to see any cubs. Hopefully, this year will be different.

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

Blue Tit
Great Tit

Long-tailed Tit

Robin

Dunnock

Wren

Blackbird

Song Thrush

Goldcrest

Chaffinch

Goldfinch

Green Woodpecker