Murmuration

It’s 4 pm on a dull November evening. The sun has already set and now the sky is the uniform, metallic grey colour of zinc. I’m standing on the boardwalk in our meadow, hoping to watch the starlings gather but nothing is happening. Perhaps they won’t come? Maybe they are roosting somewhere else?

A tight flock of finches flies directly over my head and lands in a weeping willow. Goldfinches? No, linnets. (Why do we never see them in the daytime?) Other flocks drift over; jackdaws, rooks, gulls, even redwings, but no starlings. I’m getting cold and bored and I have more important things to do than… but, "Hold on a minute: Starlings!" A flock of about twenty birds circles, splits and reforms above the grazing cows. It’s not exactly a murmuration, but their aerial antics attract another group and the flock builds to several hundred birds.

By now the light has started to fall off to the point where my camera is useless, but I’m keen to see the ballet play-out to the end. Where will they actually roost? To my dismay they fly off north towards Washout Pit but a second group is assembling and swooping low over the reeds on the far side of Cloudy Pit. Just as they dive into their roost another flock forms and then splits in two with half peeling away and half staying. As groups assemble they form a vortex of birds that sweeps around the amphitheater created by the meadow banks and the lakeside willows. The flock stretches out into a parade and then bunches up to execute a tight turn. I hear the wind rushing through millions of primary feathers as they form a river of birds that approaches me from behind and then I am drowned in birds, like a boulder in a riverbed with the torrent bulging over me. A sparrow hawk glides casually between the trees and almost gets into the flock before he his noticed, then the starlings react by bunching up into a tight ball. It’s like a muscle spasm. 

It seems that our meadow is the gathering point for birds from several roosts including the Hayling reed-bed, Washout Pit and Cloudy Pit and, so far, the numbers are in the low thousands.

Where do the birds that roost here in winter come from? British starlings might join us from the big cities or from a more scattered rural population, but continental starlings outnumber them by the million so that a single murmuration might hold 100,000 birds. 

I remember being told that you could guess at the origin of a starling from its songs and calls. They love to imitate other birds, people and even machines. If you hear a starling imitating a curlew, then it must be a rural bird and if it imitates a golden oriole or a bee-eater, it's probably not from around here! We now have starlings that imitate buzzards and we used to have a song-thrush that imitated the reversing buzzer of the big tippers at the quarry.

Scientists first learned the scale of the autumn influx of starlings when the War Office used radar to monitor air traffic over the North  Sea and English Channel during WW2. Soon after sunset their screens would fill with clouds of "Angels" which they found hard to explain until they spotted the birds in searchlight beams and as they flew across the face of the moon.

The Paxton starlings only spend half the winter with us. I have no idea where they go in January. How do they choose where to roost? The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' website tells us; "They roost in places that are sheltered from harsh weather and predators, such as woodlands, but reedbeds, cliffs, buildings and industrial structures are also used. During the day, however, they form daytime roosts at exposed places such as treetops, where the birds have good all-round visibility.” This flexibility over where to roost could be a factor in the way starlings have managed to flourish across the globe, far from their native range.

Most research on starlings has been conducted by agencies that want to find out of how to get rid of them because, where they have been introduced in America, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, their populations have soared. Over here in the UK there's a different story. Our starling population has fallen by over 80% since 1979. In the last ten years we have lost over 30% of them, meaning they are now on the critical list of UK birds most at risk, not because they are rare, but because of the alarming and rapid decline in numbers. The decline in our (UK) breeding population is believed to be due to the loss of permanent pasture, increased use of farm chemicals and a shortage of food and nesting sites in many parts of the UK. It’s the same in Europe, so there are far less continental starlings coming to visit us in winter than in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Given this decline in the overall population, it is not surprising that many traditional winter roosts have disappeared altogether. I just hope ours is not one of them!

If all this makes you want to grab your camera and head out at dawn to capture the birds leaving again, think twice and don't bother. The birds leave a few at a time as they wake up. Some of them are still half asleep and groggy so head-on collisions are quite common in the mornings. They almost never happen at dusk.

Zanzi-Bar

I entered this story for the 2015 Bridport Prize. It didn't make the long list but I still like it. If I was to rewrite it, I would spend more time on the characters and see more of the events through their eyes. I would value any criticism as I know that fiction is harder to write than the things I normally do. It is basically a true story. I was the nature guide on the trip. 

“Zanzi-Bar”            

The R.V. Prof. Antonov sailed from Dar es Salaam with 21 British passengers, a Russian crew of eight, a tour leader, a nature guide, a doctor and three stow-aways. The hot afternoon sun bore down on the ship but her forward motion generated a cooling breeze that the disorientated and disgruntled passengers desperately needed. 

They had all flown in from London that morning to have their glossy-magazine expectations badly dented by the every-day inconveniences of visiting tropical East Africa. Leaving their air-conditioned airliner to walk on the concrete apron was like landing on another planet where the pull of gravity was too strong and the atmosphere far too hot and humid to support human life. The endless wait for their baggage inside the terminal building was a relief compared to the blast-furnace outside.

A  local bus had been hired to get them to the ship, but the driver had been instructed to take the long way round as the crew needed more time to prepare for their arrival. The passengers quickly caught on and, during a sweaty visit to a market, they all agreed that they had seen enough of Dar es Salaam, thank you very much. The tour was cut short and they were driven into the docks where they were greeted by a ramshackle group of men who had set up an unofficial road block. None of the men looked over 30 and most of them wore baseball caps. The tallest of them wore black jeans and a hoody topped off with a white Muslim kufi. He spoke to the driver who asked everyone to get off the bus while a search was carried out. It was all done quietly as though this was “business as usual”, which it was.  The passengers were sure they were about to be robbed of all their possessions and a lady remarked that this was “The perfect end to a perfect day”. “Don't you just love Africa?” . Somehow the driver talked or bribed his way out of the situation and they were allowed to get back on the bus without anything obvious going missing. All everyone wanted to do now was to get on board their ship and have a stiff drink.

The ship was not what they expected; it was not shiny-white and it was not a cruise liner. One passenger remarked;

“I gave up camping years ago and I’m not taking it up again now.”

He was told that he had signed up for an “expedition” not a cruise and this silenced him, but only briefly. The truth was that most of them had not read the literature that they had been sent. The fabulous pictures of scenery and wildlife and the magical place names of Zanzibar, Aldabra and Seychelles were enough to sell them the trip; the word “exclusive” helped too.

The Antonov could be described as a Russian fishery research vessel that was equipped to work in polar waters, but she was a spy ship. In the Cold War, she had been used to track NATO vessels and to listen to radio traffic from all sorts of places, which is why she was festooned with wires and radio masts mostly designed to receive signals rather than send them. Her current charter had begun in Chile and then passed through the Falklands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. The second section of the expedition began in Cape Town, took in Madagascar and the Comoros and ended in Dar es Salaam. After all that time at sea the Antonov was not looking her best and, even if she had been, the passengers would still have found plenty to complain about. 

After only a few hours steaming up the coast she put into Zanzibar where a walking tour of Stone Town was organised for the clients. It would be almost sun-set when they returned to the dock.

The crew stayed behind and conducted a routine search that revealed two handsome young Swahili men hiding under a lifeboat that was kept upside down on the heli-deck. They were able to explain to the Captain that they were on “safari” and hoped to get to Nairobi by taking a boat to Mombasa and then hitch-hiking rides from there. Three crewmen were assigned to get the boys ashore as quietly as possible and then send them away with a few US dollars to keep their mouths shut. The passengers were not told of the incident and nothing about it was entered in the ship’s log. All in all, Captain Nikolay Smirloff was happy that the situation had been settled with the minimum of fuss. The Swahili boys probably thought the whole thing went very well too; they had never been to Zanzibar before and their adventures were just beginning.

Smuggling people between countries, even by accident, is an illegal act. The ship could have been impounded while the Captain was taken to court, except that Zanzibar is currently part of Tanzania. Technically, the boys had never left their own country.  All the same, any involvement by the Zanzibar authorities would have led to delays and some expenses too. To avoid such inconveniences, many stowaways are cast overboard from cargo boats every year.

Clutching drinks, the passengers watched astern as an impossibly large red ball of a sun set over the distant African mainland while the minarets and towers of Stone Town disappeared into the shadows below the horizon. The sea looked like a sheet of rippled gold leaf, cut across by the black shark-fin shapes of Arab dhow sailboats. As the ship picked up speed, the breeze drove most of the tourists below, but it was still warm and the few real enthusiasts on board stayed on deck to watch the Southern Cross appear in the inky tropical sky. For them this was the adventure of a lifetime and they did not wish to miss a minute of it. Their destination was the Aldabra atoll in the Seychelles Archipelago, “A thousand miles from anywhere,” as it says in the brochures.

Simon Nyiti huddled in a heap of ropes and chains that were stored below decks, right at the bow of the ship. He had no knowledge of the two Swahili boys and he had not moved from his hiding place, even when the ship stopped at Zanzibar. He planned to leave Africa behind him altogether; beyond that, he had no plan.

Simon was raised on the slopes of Mount Meru, in northern Tanzania near Arusha. His family had land there and he was engaged to be married to a local girl. He even owned some land in his own right. He asked himself “How on earth have I arrived on a Russian ship heading for God-knows-where?” 

The answer is, simply by bad luck.

Until recently, Simon would have described himself as lucky, even privileged. He was small, wiry energetic and intelligent. He had been well educated at a Catholic school and had a degree in Agriculture from the University in Morogoro. He spoke good English as well as Kiswahili and a smattering of Latin, French and German. Through family contacts he had found work as an agricultural outreach officer in the Uluguru Mountains which reminded him of home.  With the help of aid money from Sweden, he helped to introduce modern farming techniques such as intercropping and contour ploughing, both aimed at preventing the loss of valuable soil through erosion. The European Union funded other projects for forestry and fish farming as well as the management of water supplies for domestic and industrial use, mainly because Dar es Salaam’s water supply comes from the Ulugurus. Simon was on a secure career track that would make him relatively wealthy while being engaged in projects that he actually believed in. 

Aid projects rely upon a steady supply of equipment and imported vehicles such as Landrovers from the UK and Toyotas from Japan. In Tanzania these vehicles arrive in Dar es Salaam and are usually impounded until someone negotiates their release. Simon, armed with all the right paperwork and a bag of Tanzanian shillings, was sent to “Dar” to secure a new white Landcruiser that the Swedes had sent for his project. This took him four days. His  return to journey to Morogoro on the A7 highway should have taken about six or seven seven hours. He never arrived. 

Simon was followed from the docks by four men in a silver Pajero 4x4. They waited until he made a stop and hit him over his bald head with a wrench, leaving him to die behind a petrol station in Msolwa. They back-tracked to Chalinze Junction but avoided the busy town by using dirt roads and cattle tracks for a few miles. They then drove the Toyota north on the A14 to the border with Kenya where, despite being brand new and sporting Swedish Aid logos, it was sold for a fraction of its value, probably to become a taxi in Nairobi. It had not yet been reported missing.

The garage owners in Msolwa were Gujaratis who knew that calling the police would bring more problems down on their heads, so they took Simon to a near-by Methodist mission. That was where he succumbed to the cerebral malaria that he had caught on the coast.

The Methodists looked after him well and his physical health slowly recovered but Simon was depressed and he decided that he could not return to the project having lost a valuable vehicle and a large bag of cash. His very strong Christian beliefs and sense of duty combined with his confused mental state persuaded him that, with no money at all, he had to back-track to Dar es Salaam in search of justice. Due to his dishevelled appearance he failed to make a good impression on the people at the Swedish Embassy and they more or less threw him out on the street. 

After several weeks of living rough and trying to connect to friends and family, he became weak again and sank deeper into depression. He ran away from it all by climbing on board a random ship. It was very easy to do.

The deep inky water of the Indian Ocean slid by for two days with no land in sight and hardly a ripple on the surface. The tourists’ eagerness began to wear off as they searched an empty ocean for the birds and wildlife that the tour company had promised. There was no seaweed, no birds, turtles, whale-sharks or dolphins; not even any flotsam. 

In truth, the deep tropical oceans are deserts. Their warm water holds little oxygen and sunlight penetrates only so far, even in water that is so clear that it looks like a swimming pool. If you were to snorkel on the surface, you might experience a sensation of flying, or you might suffer from vertigo and imagine falling endlessly through blue space. 

On the second day a red-footed booby sat on the radar mast and was later joined by a second one. As flying fish scattered from the bows, the birds would launch themselves for an attack that was almost always successful but for the customers, at $500 a day, two birds and several fish did not add up to great value for money.

On these slow days the passengers were offered a lecture by the trip leader who was a well known television personality from the ‘80s. The talks were witty and polished and they went down well with the guests but they wanted more contact with their celebrity host. After months at sea his tolerance for his paying guests had worn thin. As far as he was concerned they had already overstayed their welcome, especially since they did not seem to be enjoying their adventure at all. He avoided them by taking all his meals in the wheelhouse with the Russian captain whom he admired and who accepted him as a seaman rather than a celebrity.

On the third morning things began to look up, at least for the passengers. The nature guide was able to point out dolphins that appeared in the ship’s wake and the seabirds that followed them. They saw white tropic-birds with long straw-like tails and thousands of terns and noddys diving for small fish. High above the smaller birds they were shown large black W-shaped frigate-birds that hung still on the breeze like tethered kites. The cold bottom-water from Antartica had hit on the ancient volcanic cone that lies beneath Aldabra and surged upwards to mix with the warm tropical water to produce a wealth of fish-food.

The ship dropped anchor at dusk and the passengers were fed and then offered a trip ashore at night to see green turtles nesting. To the guide’s surprise they turned it down despite his explanation that this would be a highlight of their trip and not something that happened every night.  He was so disappointed that he almost went ashore with the doctor who was also keen, but he was told by the tour leader to stay-put in case he was needed.

When the passengers were asleep the doctor and the naturalist joined with the crew for a Vodka-party in the stern where an orange inflatable rubber swimming pool sat on the deck. The occasion was Olga the cook’s birthday. 

Olga was a large shapeless woman with a round face featuring a row of silver teeth. She had arms like hydraulic grabs that hugged all the men around her, several at a time. Her vodka-laced breath was a fire hazard but she was clearly the most popular person on board that night.  

The bright stern lights had been lit for the party and soon the crew noticed that squid were attracted to the light and how phosphorescent the water was. They lowered bobbin-like lures into the water on hand lines and jigged them up and down until the squid took hold. They also caught a big grouper and a shark. None of these would appear on the menu offered to the passengers.

Almost everyone went ashore for a morning visit to see the island’s unique wildlife and take photos. The boatmen stayed on the island but did not join in the tour. Instead they scoured the shore for souvenirs, collecting shells, bits of coral and sacks full of sprouting coconuts. They came across dozens of giant tortoises, some big enough to ride on, and thought about taking one or two to the ship, but they were just too heavy and they did not find any small ones. One of the crew found a large purple lobster climbing a coconut tree and grabbed it for the pot. It nearly took his thumb off and he dropped it. It was enticed into a sack and they took it back to the ship with them. 

Aldabra is a World Heritage Site and no-one is allowed to collect souvenirs or remove any wildlife from the land or the sea. The tourists were briefed by the ship’s nature guide and by the rangers on the island but no-one had addressed the crew at all about this.

Simon took advantage of the passengers’ absence to try and get something to eat. He could see most of the crew on the shore with the ship’s four inflatable Zodiacs, and he could hear others at work in the stern. He grabbed a plastic bottle of water and a loaf of bread that was defrosting in the abandoned galley but he was seen by the cook. His game was up and he knew it.

Olga went up to the Bridge to tell the captain that they still had at least one stowaway on board, expecting him to order a full search of the ship. But the Captain pointed out that most of the crew would be back at the same time as the passengers and that he did not want a big fuss. He asked Olga to help him look in the most likely places and they found Simon in his dark recess huddled in a pile of ropes and rags.

The stowaway was shaking and sweating but he kept his dignity and held his arm out to take the Captain’s hand. “Good evening sir. My name is Simon Nyiti.”

Simon was told by the Captain that he was to stay where he was and that Olga would bring him food and water every day until they could get him ashore. If he showed himself to the rest of the crew or the passengers he was told that he would be thrown over the side at night for the sharks to eat. Simon believed every word.

Olga and the Captain discussed what to do with Simon. It was obvious that he was in bad shape so he was not just going to jump over the side and swim for it when they reached Seychelles.  And if he did get ashore, what then? They decided to keep a lid on the situation and not tell anyone about Simon except the ship’s doctor. 

Dr. Neil Andrews was on board to look after the passengers. Like the naturalist, he was unpaid but he had taken the job for the free trip. The passengers never seemed to need his help and the only medical work he had done was to treat some of the crew for various rashes and small injuries. The most serious case he had dealt with was an ingrowing toe-nail. He interviewed Simon and examined him from head to toe, then he reported back to the Captain.

“That man has been through a terrible time and should be in hospital really, but I think he will be fine if we feed him up and keep him hydrated. I’ve given him some antibiotics and cleaned up his sores and scratches with antiseptic swabs and that’s all I can do. I’ll check on him early each morning”.

During the next three days the weather deteriorated bringing an unhelpful headwind and and some showers. The Captain decided to arc to the north to avoid the worst of the weather. Each day the passengers would visit a different island, Alphonse, Des Roches and then Cousin. With the passengers ashore Olga, who spoke only Russian, would visit Simon and help him to clean up before feeding him. He was clearly in bad shape and needed mothering. Tears ran down Simon’s cheeks in a combination of exhaustion, sorrow and gratitude.  He surrendered to his emotions totally and slept like a baby after she left him.

Cousin Island is on the edge of the inner islands of Seychelles that sit within sight of each other on a shallow plateau. They are made of granite rather than coral and some are quite mountainous. The mountains attract rain and so the vegetation is much more lush than on the flat coral islands. These are the islands where almost all of the people live and where, on the island of Mahe, all on board would have to go through Customs and Immigration. It was time to decide what to do about Simon.

Instead of cruising into the port of Victoria as planned, the Antonov anchored for the night off the west end of Praslin Island which is rugged and sparsely populated. Near midnight the Captain went to Simon to tell him of his plan. He took Olga with him because he knew Simon trusted her.

“Simon. We are going to put you ashore on this island and leave you there. You will be OK.”

Olga saw the panic in Simon’s eyes and tried to hold his hand, but he pulled away. The Captain spoke again in his clipped English:

“Simon. We will give you food and supplies but you must wait three days before you contact local people. You will be OK.”

Three crewmen took Simon away quietly in a rowing boat. In the darkness they could see the swell that marked the outer reef and beyond that the silhouettes of palm trees climbing up a rounded hill. The shore looked rocky and possibly risky for a landing. They had watched the island from the ship all evening and chosen an area with no lights or any sign of human habitation. Simon made no effort to escape and he said nothing. 

Paddling along the shore for perhaps thirty minutes revealed a small white beach that glowed under the moonlight. They slipped Simon ashore with three black garbage bags full of supplies that included bottles of water, food and a tarpaulin with which to make a shelter. They each patted him on his back and left him standing on the beach like an abandoned child.

The passengers explored the Vallee de Mai in the morning. It is a sort of “Jurassic Park” composed of ancient palms with a host of unique animals and birds, but without dinosaurs. The tourists finally seemed happy to meet their vision of what a tropical island jungle should look like. This was no co-incidence because the forest was made to look that way by its former French owner who removed all the more modern flowering plants that are widespread across the tropics to make it look more primeval. In the afternoon they enjoyed paddling and snorkelling around a small rock crowned with three palm trees. Isle Sainte Pierre conformed exactly with their expectations of a desert island and so the passengers were finally happy.

That night the ship moored at the quay in Victoria alongside a couple of yachts and half a dozen tuna boats beside the cannery. The Captain was arrested but was allowed to return to the ship which was impounded.

Arrangements were agreed that the passengers would be told nothing. They would stay on the ship at night but a local tour company would provide transport around Mahe and La Digue for two days and finally to the airport for their departure for the flight home. 

The Court of Justice in Victoria is not a busy place. The community is small and the crime rate is low so Captain Smirloff appeared before the judge within twenty-four hours. The charge was “people smuggling” in that he had deliberately smuggled an illegal immigrant into the Republic of Seychelles. He represented himself but was supported by staff from the Russian Embassy which is surprisingly large for such a small state. 

As soon as the rowing boat left him, Simon, who was terrified of being left alone in a jungle that he thought might hide snakes, crocodiles or even tigers, set off inland to find somewhere safe. He could smell the remains of a cooking fire somewhere nearby and he found a palm-thatched wooden hut, very like those around his home in Arusha. He roused the sleeping family within and begged for their help.

“I am a poor Christian man who has been thrown over the side of a ship and left to drown. You must help me.” Perhaps he felt that this embroidered version of his arrival might gain him more sympathy than the bare truth. 

The poor Seychellois family of five seemed totally unimpressed by Simon’s arrival. They were Kreol speakers and only partly understood what Simon said. They had no telephone or electricity and so they simply made him up a mattress and went back to sleep. It would take another half day to walk him to the police station in Grande Anse.

In the court, apart from having to pay a substantial fine, the Captain was relieved to learn that he was free to go as long as he took Simon with him. Behind closed doors, the embassy had obviously bargained hard with the judge on his behalf. 

———————-

Today the R.V. Prof Antonov no longer exists. On her return to Russia she was sold to an American company who completely refitted her and gave her a new name. She now specialises in nature tours for National Geographic and the Smithsonian. 

Captain Nikolai Smirloff has retired and all the crew members have been paid off. Six of them set up in business together. They have their own restaurant in a disused ship’s chandlery where the old ropes, nets and other marine paraphernalia give it some atmosphere. They have small palms in pots around the walls and between the tables to give a tropical effect. If you are ever in Vladivostok you should look them up. The place is called “Zanzi-Bar". It is a popular place to drink at any time, but in the evenings the crowd comes for the food which is mostly cooked by Olga. The menu is in KiSwahili, Chinese and Russian and includes a lot of fish dishes and kuku or chicken that is marinaded in coconut milk and Zanzibar spices then grilled on skewers. While Olga is mostly out of sight in the kitchen, her crewmates wait on the tables. The barman is an African called Simon Nyiti.

Why are there so many goldfinches in European art?

I've been promising to write up this story for a month now. Today my son came up from Finchley (on the north side of London) and it all came back to me. How did Finchley get its name?

What kind of finch lived in Finchley? Was Finch-ley literally a field (ley) with finches, or was it a field owned by a man named Finch? To be honest no-one really knows, but there is no record of anyone named Finch that is associated with the parish. Actually there is no early history of the village at all. It is not mentioned in the Domesday Book (11th C) but it slowly gained prominence as a source of timber and then hay for Londoners up into the 20th century when it started to evolve into a suburb.

As a village on the north edge of London, it would have been an important location for an urban population who needed fresh produce for the larder and fodder for horses. I'm convinced that the village was also a focus for the wild bird trade.

Take a look at the crest that is used by the local authority. It is topped by a finch, but which species? In the oldest versions that I can find it is a goldfinch, but in the later RAF Squadron insignia it became a greenfinch. Generally the goldfinch has a long historic pedigree while other finches are almost always generic.

In Ancient Greece (and perhaps Egypt) goldfinches were associated with good fortune and wealth. We still talk about a "charm" of goldfinches rather than a flock.

In the Medieval period a huge number of religious paintings were made that showed the Madonna and Child with a goldfinch. What was that all about?

I think that an amalgam of historic associations comes to play here; some Pagan and some Christian.

The older view that Goldfinches represented wealth and good-fortune was not abandoned but became fused with the idea of the "thistle-bird" that plucked the thorns from Christ's head and so had it's forehead stained with blood. Goldfinches, probably because of this association with Christ, also became miraculous and so, during the Medieval period when Europe was plagued by waves of "Black Death" and other diseases such as fatal forms of influenza, a goldfinch might cure you by simply fixing you with its inscrutable stare.

European artists operating in the 17th Century and afterwards merged the two earlier notions but also brought in a more humanist viewpoint, treating the bird as a subject in itself and posing questions about the idea of keeping birds (or people?) in captivity.

18th Century portraits of wealthy families in Europe often show children with pet goldfinches and these reflect the idea of wealth and good fortune, but they also reflect the tradition that every family personifies the holy family.

The Dutch masters evolved a super realistic, almost photographic view of their domestic world but, in a time of religious and political schism, they introduced a sophisticate level of symbolism into their paintings that was often scandalous and usually humorous.

Madonna and child by Raphael.

A caged bird in a portrait of a lady represented her virtue. A cage without a bird represented the opposite. Often a map on the wall showed that her husband was away. There are many more layers of encoding in these paintings that academics still debate.

In my view, there is no denying the fact that a disproportionate amount of paintings throughout history include goldfinches and I always think that one reason for this has to be that artists simply like painting goldfinches!

In looking around the Internet, I have found some really good resources on this subject so, rather than steal their work, I'm giving you their links:

https://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/the-goldfinch-symbol-of-salvation-yet-thrice-cursed-enjailed-in-pitiless-wire/
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/pharos/collection_pages/middle_pages/563/TXT_BR_SS-563.html

Mark Cocker's book "Man and Birds" is a great place to start on anything relating to birds and I use an old book "All the Birds of the Air"  by Francesca Greenoak regularly.

Its a big subject, worthy of a whole book, but I hope that I have peaked your interest enough for you to look out for goldfinches (and other birds) at your local gallery. I'm still having fun with this.

Ten men went to mow

Hay-time will soon be upon us. I wrote this for my Ranger's blog.

At Paxton Pits Nature Reserve we always plan for as late a cut as we can in order to allow most of the flowers set seed. If we leave it too late, the hay turns brown and loses all of its food value. It's a tricky balancing act.

Chris Alderson, Jim Stevenson,
Alex Stevenson and Arnold Alderson
Ivelet 1956

Hay was always a vital crop to keep livestock fed in winter. In my childhood, I often walked with my grandmother through the buttercups in Swaledale, which is limestone country. Each hay-meadow had a name and was surrounded by a dry-stone wall. Every field contained a stone cow-byre with a midden of manure outside it.

A network of narrow footpaths led through all of the fields, but woe betide anyone who took a detour through the flowers. Many a wandering townie has had his day ruined by an encounter with an angry Dalesman yelling words that children should never hear and that most adults would need a translator to understand, all because he wandered off the straight-and-narrow and flattened the hay.

"Git thesel owt o't fog and back on't path" would be a polite request in Dale-speak. (Fog means any grass but "Yorkshire Fog" is a particular species of grass, Holcus lanatus.)

Good drying weather is essential for hay-making, so it's important not to cut the crop if it is going to rain. Ideally you need three dry days but four would be better. We used to cut the hay with a horse-drawn cutting bar but by the end of the 1950's most farmers had little grey "Fergies", blue Ford tractors or orange-red Fordson Majors. Because the hay was so valuable, every awkward corner and every steep slope was cut either using a scythe or a two-wheeled Allen mower.

Once cut, the hay needs to be turned repeatedly to dry it out. We used wooden hay-rakes and pitch forks to turn the hay and that required a lot of people. I remember hay-making in a field called "Robin" with perhaps a dozen other folks that included "Mosser" Alderson, his wife, two sons, a couple of neighbours and several elderly relatives from "up-dale" as well as a us little'uns. On bigger farms they would hire in a team of roving "hay-time-men" who were mostly Irish.

Ferguson tractor

When the hay had been turned a few times most of the seed had fallen out and that's why a good hay meadow gets progressively more rich in wild flowers over time.

The finished hay was pitchforked onto a horse-drawn sled. My job as a three year-old was just to sit on the horse, but when I was five I drove the tractor instead. Of course I ciould not reach the pedals but I sat at the steering wheel and worked the hand throttle. We chugged around the field very slowly in low gear as the hay was piled high on the sled and then we led it to the byre where it was pitched into the hay-loft above the cattle stalls where the short-horn cows would spend the winter.

The farm's sheep were kept on the high pasture and the moors while the cattle that were not being milked were on open pastures or commons. Only the ten or twelve milk-cows were kept near to home, but not on the best hay fields.

Today at Paxton Pits we have two proper hay meadows that I call the Home Meadow and the Lower Meadow near to the visitor's centre. We also have a long, narrow riverside field called "The Great Meadow" where we don't cut hay. They are all quite new but we want to make them as good as any historic meadow. How do we do that?

Yellow rattle. When the seed-pods rattle, it's hay time.

It is possible to simply plant a meadow. In Lincolnshire a lot of meadows have been created by drilling rows of local wild flower seeds into the grass sward. The result looks like a stripy, corduroy cloth with narrow yellow rows of cowslips, buttercups and yellow rattle. Over time the stripes merge and you have what looks like an ancient meadow.

Our two home meadows were created as part of the restoration of the quarry that created Rudd Pit and Cloudy Pit. Grass was sown, but most of the other plants came in on their own. Some, such as yellow rattle and meadow cranesbill, had a little help. When a cable was laid under the meadow a few more plants arrived in the bare soil, including knapweed. You could say that we just managed our fields as though they were already proper hay-meadows, and that's what they became.

A restored baler.

Every year, the management is the same. We let the flowers grow until early July and then we make hay using our tractors to mow, turn and bale the crop. Most of the seed falls out during this process, but there is always some left in the hay. The hay-bales are stored in our barn ready to feed our highland cattle in winter.

We leave a margin of several meters around the hay-cut and keep a few of the best floral bits just for looking at and for the insects that we have just made homeless. Those margins show up all year round because that is where the coarser grasses and the late flowering plants survive.

Grasses are specially adapted to being grazed and so they quickly bounce back after the hay is cut. If we do not have a drought, after only a few weeks we could take a second crop of hay or silage but we don't. Instead we borrow about ten gentle, friendly cows and calves from a neighbour. The cattle munch their way through the regrowth and the marginal coarse bits. The are picky-eaters so that the resulting sward is patchy. They also make fabulous "meadow muffins" that attract invertebrates. Badgers come and turn the cow-pats over to find worms.

Loading hay bales at Paxton Pits.

If we get a wet winter, the lower meadow becomes quite boggy. I have seen quite a selection of waders and water birds there over the years, including snipe, woodcock and redshanks. The drier top meadow often attracts fieldfares and redwings that feed on worms after all the berries have gone from the hedgerows.

Before Christmas, the cattle have run out of food and so the farmer takes them home. Unfortunately, they don't eat everything and so we have to take out invading willows and cut back the edges in places where we expect orchids in spring. Even in March we should see a few flowers popping up.

The Great Meadow is managed as a wet meadow, the difference being that we graze it lightly in summer and remove the cattle before the winter floods. This is typically how flood-meadows are managed, but we are a bit disappointed in our progress so far. The meadow is just too dry and we are not seeing a lot of wildflowers except in the ditches.

Stampede.

The Great Meadow was never part of the quarry but it was ploughed for growing peas until the 1990s so the soil has no "memory" or wildflower seed bank. We tried gathering seed from our older meadow and scattered it on a lowish bit of the Great meadow near our wind pump. A spotted orchid appeared and some yellow rattle, so it did work, at least a bit.

This week we were checking on another field that we call Pumphouse Meadow, a mile north of the Reserve in the quarry. That's where our cows go in winter. By March they need a bit of feeding so we take them some of our hay which they absolutely love. They only have to hear a vehicle coming before they stampeded along the fence to be first in line. We tend to feed them along the fence because the access is good and we can check out the cows without getting a swipe from a stray horn.

What we noticed was that we now have a very nice buttercup meadow along the fence due to the seeds falling out of the hay. I'm guessing that this is the way we will seed the Great Meadow too.

Wadenhoe

 This week, we found Wadenhoe.

We live in, or very close to, six English counties (plus three vice-counties, Huntingdonshire, the Soke of Peterborogh, and Rutland). "So what?" you might ask.

Well, each county has its own strong charecteristics and looks to it's own historic county town for focus. That town is often a cathedral city too; think of Lincoln, Northampton, Norwich and Leicester. However, in my neck of the woods,  Cambridge is the county town but Ely and Peterborough have the cathedrals. Each county has its own local newspapers and radio stations, so it really is a revelation to visit another county to hear the local dialect and pick up some leaflets for the local attractions.

The six counties are all accessible for an afternoon out from our house. In fact, we can be in London or Birmingham in an hour; both several counties away. It all goes to show that England isn't very big really, but it is a very diverse place.

This week we "discovered" the little bit of Northamptonshire that is nearest to us, and we fell in love with it. Let me tell you why.

Imagine leaving our flat grid-iron of a fenland landsape behind and, after driving west for only a few minutes, turning off onto a single-track road  that winds between hedges and woods and climbs over actual hills that require you to change gear! The houses here are built from yellow stone and many of them have stone-tiled or thatched roofs. It's England as it used to be. There is no cell-phone reception and no traffic noise except mine. You drop into a shallow valley and cross (via an ancient, rickety bridge)  a clear winding river that meanders through water meadows, then rushes through mill races and sluices. Go on, scan the horizon for signs of industry. There are none. What you will see is rolling countryside, woods, hamlets and churches; lots of really old churches. You will also see birds of prey, especially kites, buzzards, hawks and kestrels. The sky is never empty.


On first acquaintance Wadenhoe is charming, but I want to know more. For instance, who owns that huge Tudor house with all the chimneys, by the river? Why is it so run-down?

The house turns out to be Lilford Hall and it is not open to the public.

Lilford Hall is a Tudor house that is stuffed with history. You can find out a lot from the splendid 500 page web-site that the owners have put together. www.lilfordhall.com  but I'll just give you a snippet or two here.

I'm always interested in any connections with America, and this house has at least two. One is Robert Brown (1550 -1633) and the other is the film-star Clarke Gable.


Robert Browne was the first separatist from the Church of England.  During the reign of James I (James the VI if you are Scottish) life became increasingly difficult for religious minorities and so, inspired by his teachings, the Pilgrim Fathers sailed on the Mayflower to found the Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts. Many many more dissidents later set sail for America and established congregations in line with Brownist philosophy. Robert Browne has since been referred to as the Father of Congregationalism, Father of the Pilgrims and Grandfather of the Nation (USA). Sadly he died in prison after refusing to pay a parish tax. His crime was made more serious because he struck a police constable.
Clarke Gable was stationed at Lilford during WW 2 when the house also acted as a military hospital. He signed up to the USAAF and they capitalised on his fame by using him to make a recruitment film that was made on real sorties in the Flying Fortress bombers that flew from the airbases in Northamptonshire. You can watch the restored movie on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SJQYG_GskY

We also found a former owner of the house who was a serious bird-watcher.

The Powys family owned the hall from 1711 to 1949 and Thomas Powys (1833-1896) was the Fourth Baron Lilford. He was the first chairman of the British Ornithologists Union and also the man who introduced the little owl to the UK.

The house and estate are in need of quite a bit of restoration work. If you are interested, the estate is currently for sale. It could all be yours for only 50,000,000 Euros.

Wadenhoe itself is not much more than a stone hamlet with about 120 residents. In Saxon, a Wadden was a ford that youcould wade across. There is still a ford below the mill. A Hoe is a hill or spur, like the one on which the church stands.

Our first visit to the village was almost entirely spent in the Barn tea-room with our son Dan. We can recommend it is you want a snack and a friendly chat. On our second visit we had lunch in the pub, which was just as friendly and the hot food was really good. We stuffed ourselves with duck and pork, and deserts, and real ale before setting out on a hike up the hill and beyond.
I suspect that the place can be overwhelmed by walkers and dog owners on a good day, so I would book if I were you. On our late winter's afternoon we had the whole village more or less to ourselves.

Climbing up to the church, we noted two remarkable things:

The red kites that were whistling to each other sounded like shepherds calling their dogs. They were totally unfazed by us and, if the light had been better, I could have taken some cracking photos of them, both in flight and in the bare trees.

The church does not sit on the top of the hill, it is sunk into it so that as you enter through the porch andthe heavy wooden door, you are surprised to find that the floor inside is much lower than the outside. Entering the nave is like descending into a crypt. Why did they do that? Maybe they excavated the hill to get the stone for the church and then built it in the hole they had created. Certainly the hill is riddled with earthworks, presumably to quarry building stone. The mound is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, managed by Natural England as a mini-nature reserve. We loved it.

The village and the church-mound lie on the Nene Way and the Lyveden Way; both popular walking routes. You just have to try them both, or you could just enjoy a meal and pint at the pub, especially in summer when you could sit in the garden on the river bank and watch the world go by. I think I'll book Sunday lunch now.

Trigger-happy?

I wrote this story for a competition last year. It didn't win, but I still like it!

It was my last day in Maine on a fishing vacation from my home in England. Two fish-less weeks left me desperate enough to hire a professional guide and that is how I met Pete and spent a day with him. I still didn’t catch any fish but we exchanged tales and he told me all about his guns. 

Captain Pete Bedford operates along the coast and up the big rivers that drain into Merrymeeting Bay and on down the Kennebec River to the Gulf of Maine. He really looks the part with his neat uniform, bandy seaman's legs and grey fisherman's beard but, in reality, he is a retired businessman who just likes to fish. Guiding makes him some seasonal income and that helps him to justify his fancy boat, on which he spent more money than he should have. The oversize outboard engine drinks too much fuel, which means that every time he takes it out he needs a client to pay for it.

His house is not an expensive waterfront property but an old painted wooden house in the pinewoods, not far off Route 1, about eight miles from the salt. If you have been there, you will know hundreds of properties that look like his. You drive along a black road with a yellow mid-line, pine trees on either side and no view. Every half a mile a track leads off to a house, a trailer-home or a cabin and you get a quick glance. Try for yourself on Google Earth. Some of them have vintage tractors parked out in front.

Pete’s place is smarter than most; well kept with a trim lawn and no derelict vehicles or fridges to act as rusting lawn ornaments. His boat usually sits under-cover on it’s trailer in the yard next to his white pick-up truck, two snow-mobiles and a variable number of family cars. A snow plough sits greased and ready to be attached to the pickup when winter sets in. Without it, he might not get onto the highway for days. He regularly digs out his neighbours and they repay him in various ways. His mail is left at the roadside in a black mailbox that he can empty without getting out of his car, but he can collect it in snow-shoes if need be. It has “Big Fish” written on it in white capitals.

As you go round the back you will see a rack of canoes and kayaks below a wooden deck with a bug-screen and a hot-tub. The black-flies and mosquitos can be fearsome, but before you worry about the flies you should concern yourself with the dog. His name is Bandit and he is a guard dog; after a single bark he will lick you to death.

Through the trees Pete can see the river, about a mile away across a railroad where wild turkeys perch on the hot tracks to warm their feet. Moose sometimes follow the tracks too, before turning away through the marsh towards the water. It is impossible to walk to the river from the house but Pete likes to look at it anyway. He cut down a swathe of trees to get this view and then the north wind blew through the gap and felled a dozen more, right up to the house. 

Bald eagles have nested on his property and he sees ospreys all the time in summer. More than once he has encountered a bear in his yard; probably attracted rather than repelled by his dog and the smell of cooking. 

In these parts where there is game all around you, rural kids learn to hunt and fish from an early age. Every householder is expected to bring home some wild meat once in a while, but Pete prefers to fish. All the same, he buys a ticket for one turkey gobbler and another for a deer each year. His son John does the same. They each have a rifle and a shotgun and they have tried using cross-bows too, with little success but Pete mostly enjoys hunting for the time it gives him with his son. Like the time he taught him to drive; he has the boy to himself with no distractions. They get on well, he thinks. His daughter is another story. He taught her to shoot and to drive, just like her brother, but when she hit her teens both of her parents became “The Enemy.” She went off to college in a “whirl of heck” and never came home.

Mid-coast neighbours may live miles apart but they tend to know each other much better than they know the folks from “away.” The school is the focal-point of the community for parents, but absolutely everyone uses the local store and gas station. It sells everything you need and they rent movies too. Coffee is free, they make their own cinnamon rolls and you can get a Wi-Fi connection. All the same, most people use the big supermarkets and the stores like Target and Walmart in the Topsham Mall for their monthly shop. The summer folks buy outdoor clothes from L.L. Bean in Freeport but all the locals shop at Reny’s. 

Pete is a steady, upstanding man and gets a lot of respect. He was made a Selectman last year; a town councillor responsible for a community fund that is doled out to the most needy. He tries to be fair, but in truth he does not relate to people who he sees to be inadequate or incompetent. He would die of shame rather than accept a hand-out himself and he particularly has no time for junkies or alcoholics. His sympathy is reserved for the elderly and for young single mothers, of which his small township has it’s fair share.

This is not a bad community; not dysfunctional or even under-resourced but there is still poverty. The land is harsh and a lot of the work is seasonal so people often hold down several jobs at a time to make a decent living. At low tide, you might see a middle-class couple digging bait or clams to augment their income and people may drive for two hours each way to do a low-paid part-time job. Despite that, there is almost no crime. 

Most Mainers own sporting guns and at least one hand-gun. People keep them in their bedrooms and kitchens and in their cars when they go out. Women have them in their handbags, but they do not drive around with their guns on view like cowboys. As a visitor, you won’t see a gun because people around here are discreet and understated. Folks do not dress to be different and they do not show off. The summer visitors do that.

The household gun collection is modest, comprised of a couple of .22 rifles that the kids used to shoot targets and squirrels with, a nine-gauge shotgun for birds, a .38 pistol and a Smith and Wesson .45 for self defence. None of the guns is flashy or collectable and Pete spends a lot more on fishing rods than he does guns. 

Late one moonless Friday night, Pete heard a noise from downstairs. It was hot and humid and the stars were obscured by low cloud. The air almost fizzed with static and fireflies flashed green lightning in zig-zag nose-dives above the dark corners of the lawn. 

To a visitor like you or me, the cicadas and crickets would sound deafening, but he really didn’t hear them. Wooden houses talk to themselves all the time, so Pete was used to hearing the familiar creaks and pops as the house breathed. What he heard now was drawers and cupboards being opened and busy footwork on the kitchen floor. 

He lay there, tense in the dark and then he shook his wife awake. Pete signed with his finger over his lips for her to keep quiet while he pulled his stubby black .45 revolver and a head torch out of the drawer on his side of the bed. 

It may seem an irrelevant thing to worry about in a crisis, but he scouted around the room in the dark to find something to cover his nakedness and laid his hands on his wife’s blue night-dress on the back of the door. 

Now, Pete is a big man and his wife, Mary-Beth, is a wiry little woman who stands 5 feet in her shoes. Threads snapped in protest as he tried to drag the flimsy garment over his sweating, bulging frame, but he managed to tie the sash across his belly.

He took the stairs slowly, trying to make no noise, but every step creaked. A low yellow light seeped from the kitchen and there were shadows busily moving about. Raccoons would certainly raid a kitchen if the window was left open but they would not turn a light on to do it. This was definitely an intruder and he was probably armed.

Pete’s gun was loaded, but he felt the chambers over with his fingers to be certain. The metal felt reassuringly cool and heavy, with a trace of oily film on the surface. He steadied his breathing, slipped the safety catch off and cocked the hammer as he leaned over the banister to take aim through the open kitchen door. A long minute passed while he waited to get a view of his target but all he saw was shadows.  

If an intruder has both feet inside your house, etiquette only requires that you call out a warning before letting loose, but he decided to stay put on the stairs and wait for the intruder to show. Time dragged on and tore at his patience, so he decided to take the initiative before he lost his nerve. He shouted hoarsely:

“I know you are in my kitchen and I have a gun. Come out with your hands raised, or I’ll shoot your head off.” 

His voice did not sound like his own and the words seemed ridiculous, but they got the desired reaction. There was a loud clatter, a chair scraped and a slight figure moved into the frame of the door, backlit and silhouetted like a target in an arcade game. He almost pulled the trigger.

Above the pumping hiss of a pulse in his ears he heard a girl’s voice:

“Hi Mr. Bedford. Please don’t shoot me. It’s me, Louise.” 

Louise is John’s long-time girlfriend from college. The couple had loaded his beat-up green Subaru four-by-four and then set out late from Portland to avoid the Friday evening traffic, stopping off in Freeport for supper. John thought it was too late to call his folks and figured that he would surprise them in the morning. 

_______

Saturday breakfast was more like brunch. Mary-Beth had risen first and made waffles and French toast and nuked some maple syrup. Outside on the deck, Pete (in shorts and a garish red surfers’ shirt) had grilled up Canadian bacon, sausage patties and burgers on the gas barbecue. There was coffee, juice and milk on the table. 

John was into his second coffee when Louise came in with her long black hair piled into a towel. Even without her morning make-up she looked exotic with big dark eyes set in a pale triangular face. She said “Hi” to the family and immediately set about pouring herself an orange juice and filling a plate with food. She said absolutely nothing about the night before and chatted amiably with Mary-Beth about the house and college life. Bandit lay under her chair and begged to be patted and rubbed.

Pete felt obliged to say something;

“It’s not every night someone points a revolver at you is it?” 

“No Sir, but I’m from New York so, you know, its not that unusual. But what really freaked me out was seeing you in drag. I mean, do you normally wear something that doesn't cover anything up?”

“I gotta say this though: My folks live in New York City, America’s Capital of Crime, but they don’t own a gun. Out here in the woods where the crime rate is about zero, you are so scared of being burgled that you are prepared to shoot some kid who might be raiding your fridge. Why is that?”

_____________

Out in the fishing boat, after hearing about the incident in his kitchen, I asked Pete about gun ownership in Maine and he told me that guns were the reason for the low crime rate. I thought there must be a lot of other factors at play and I explained that we had a pretty low crime rate in England without guns. 

He made less effort to be sociable after that point.

They call it “New England” and until my day with Pete I felt pretty much at home there, but as our session on his boat dragged on, our differences grew more apparent. He still has my respect and I am grateful to him for giving me more than a tourist’s glimpse of the real Maine, but I think we were both glad to cut the day short, shake hands and call it quits.