Leaving for work at this time of year is always in complete darkness for me which does have its for and against, on the plus side I do get to hear the odd Tawny owl calling, usually the female calls a ‘Toowit’ sound followed by a male calling a ‘Toowhoo’, hence the old saying ‘to woo someone’, so I was once told. I  also nearly walked into Muntjac deer as it wandered along the deserted footpath in the town, also hedgehogs not yet in hibernation trotting along the side of the footpath looking for slugs in the wet grass.

Another plus on clear cold mornings it is the stars and if you are lucky the odd satellite moving from horizon to horizon, I did get a bonus on Thursday morning when the international space station went from West to East in front of me at 5:50am I could see it for a nearly 4 minutes, NASA provide a handy website ‘Spot the Station’ so you know if and when you can see it from where you live.

On the down side I can not see the usual wildlife from the train as I travel to Cambridge as it is too dark, usually I can count, fox, deer, Marsh Harrier, Buzzard and in Summer the odd Hobby.

Hobby

But for now I have to make do with reading a book until the mornings get lighter.

This Weekend is the Festival of Swans at WWT Welney, So I will be helping there tomorrow,  9 common cranes were sighted there yesterday, so hopefully they will still be about, in the Winter there have been up to 13 cranes flying together, known as the ‘Fenland Flock’ this would be sight to see, I have been lucky enough to see 6 fly in together and managed to get a photograph even with them being quite a way off I think you can see they are cranes.

Common Cranes

Every Month in the Autumn and Winter months our Local Group of the Wildlife trust hold talks on a wildlife related themes, one of the ones that stands out was by Brian Eversham, Chief Executive of BCN Wildlife Trust on Climate Change which he gave us the following predictions and facts

• there has been a doubling in the frequency of climate-driven environmental catastrophes since 1980;
• up to 50,000 human deaths in Europe were caused by the ‘hot’ summer of 2003 (which was only 2°C warmer than the current average, and may be the norm by 2050);
• a 1°C temperature rise would threaten 10% of species with extinction;
• sea level in the Thames estuary is now rising by 3mm a year, and this will increase to 8.5 mm a year by 2055;
• global carbon emissions mean that the chances of limiting warming to 2°C is now very unlikely.

On the plus side he said 80% of British wildlife species are southern and eastern in their current distribution, so can be expected to increase and spread in response to climate warming, IF the landscape is fit for them to move through. These are the potential ‘winners’.

I did not need to look far this week as already I have seen flowers in bloom you would normally expect to see in May like cranesbill that I have seen this last few days flowering in Ely and Cambridge.

Cranesbill

Also we have seen ‘Summer’ birds like Blackcaps that breed in Britain and Ireland and migrate south in Autumn to winter in the Mediterranean and Africa, but the BTO has recorded over recent years Breeding Blackcaps from Europe heading West to spend Winter in Britain and Ireland, also last January I saw Chiffchaffs in Ely they normally arrive in Early Spring but it seems they are spending Winter in Britain and Ireland as well, could this be a sign our Winter’s are milder and they are able to find food. Best we keep our bird feeders well stocked and maybe we will see these new Winter birds in our gardens during cold snaps.

Chiffchaff, on May blossom

It feels more like a typical November day today chilly and dark, in fact it is only just daylight by the time I get to work, I walk in darkness to the train station, but the Robins are singing under the false dawn of the street lamps, it is these dark mornings I notice how close the blackbirds get to your feet as you scuffle along in the fallen leaves, perhaps they are behaving like true woodland birds as they along with Robins would follow wild boar as they uncovered slugs and worms in the leaf litter of old woodlands.

It is days like today I think back to what is now seeming to be those far off days of late Spring and Early Summer, like late May when we spent a week in Kessingland visiting family and old haunts like Dunwich Heath.

Dunwich Heath

Dunwich Heath was always rich in birds and wildlife, but in recent years it now has a rare breeding bird that I would never have seen in my childhood years, the Dartford warbler which I was lucky enough to get an image of this year, now breeds on the heath, but sometimes their numbers take a tumble if we have a harsh winter so can be hard to find at times in the following spring.

Dartford Warbler, Dunwich Heath

So let us hope the winter is short and not a harsh one and it will not be so long before we can walk along the beaches of Suffolk and the heathlands are full of nesting birds.

Looking South on Kessingland beach, Suffolk