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Local Wildlife |
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Daniel's Bees |
I have a very
interesting hobby which is Beekeeping. I got into Beekeeping
last year after a friend of my mum’s took me to see his Apiary.
I have 5 hives in my
apiary at the moment. When I go to look at the hives with my
dad I have to get dressed up in a white bee suit which consists
of a white boiler suit and a hat which is enclosed with a veil.
We check the hives every 7 to 10 days to make sure that they
have not made any queen cells, because if they have then they
could swarm, this means that the old queen will take half of the
bees (a hive has at least 60,000 Bees) with her and will find
another place to live. You sometimes find them hanging in a
tree or a bush which my Dad did when I was in Bristol this
year. Here is a picture of this swarm.
Hopefully in the Summer
they will make lots of honey, they do this by drawing out wax
which is in hexagonal shapes on an oblong shaped sheet of wax,
they go out and collect pollen in their pollen sacks which are
on their legs and bring it back to the hive and put it in the
brood chamber. The brood chamber is where the queen lays her
eggs. (She lays over 2,000 eggs per day). Then at night they
transfer the pollen from the brood chamber to the super and then
they eat it and regurgitate into honey and put it in the
hexagonal columns. In the Autumn we extract honey from these
hexagonal sheets and this is where our jars of honey come from.
Before the winter approaches we have to feed them with a
solution of sugary water to help them through the winter and
then we batten down the hatches and leave them to go dormant
which means they go to sleep until the spring.
Here is a picture of my
hives in the winter.
By Daniel Woodward age 11
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Brian's Bees |
After three
atrocious summers in a row and all the costs of keeping them
alive could 2010 be a better year? The month of July is the
most important for a good harvest, in this area clover and
bramble the most important crops. Town bee keepers usually do
better with all the variety of gardens and orchards, even half
empty coca-cola cans? July is also a good time for swarms
whether you are ready for them or not. A swarm is half the bee
colony leaving the hive with the old queen, a new one stays
behind, mates on the wing and starts laying eggs. We need good
weather for this as well. By 1st August the harvest
is over. Good weather or not, the time for the wind-down to
winter, first extracting the honey then medicine to control the
mites then feeding with sugar to bring stores to about 30lb,
enough to last until next April and finally mouse guards at the
entrance or mouse poison underneath the hive. Mice eat the
winter stores and can squeeze through a 10mm hole. The bees
could starve to death if unchecked. Writing this on 20th
June I wonder what the weather next month brings, could even be
too dry, burnt pastures and water shortages. The joys of an
English summer!
(Whitstone Whistler July 2010)
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House
Martins |
Houses and
Homes – and the Art of Seduction
A pair of house martins have been
labouring, with admirable patience and persistence, on the
construction of their nest for over a month now. Since they
arrived punctually at the end of April they have, from first
light until the daylight dims at the close of the day, been
making flights to and fro between the nest site - in the acute
angle of the apex of the roof on the new extension of the school
- and the source of the raw material for the nest. Over-active
moles have unwittingly aided the martins by heaving up vast
quantities of excavated earth.
The first time you are aware
of these ‘parish’ birds is the flash of blue-black as they skim,
veer and gyre in the air space above the school playground. The
amount of energy on display belies the distances they have
travelled on migration from the exotic locations in which they
have spent the winter; the impulse to migration is inescapable
and the reproductive imperative is re-invigorating and cannot be
ignored
The start of the building work
is marked by one of the pair dabbing the first pellet of
moistened mud against the rough-cast wall and chirping what
proves to be an irresistible invitation to its partner to settle
alongside it. Spreading wings, they plummet and describe a
graceful arc in the air, effortlessly soaring to conduct their
courtship on the wing.
The painstaking work of
construction continues uninterrupted by playing children, a
lesson in diligence, commitment and industry – and how to ignore
noisy children. At first, the work seems to progress relatively
quickly, each day’s efforts measured by a course of dark mud
slowly drying. Over a period of a few days, however, as the base
of the nest from which the bulk of it will thrust is
established, the bands of fresh mud narrow as the wall of the
cup begins to gently distend. Despite the toil involved and the
occasional disaster that befalls the unfortunate and the
inexperienced, completion of the project is achieved, it seems,
on time and on budget. The next phase can now begin – the
provision of the soft furnishings of the single-room abode.
The shape of the nest and the
practical purpose for which it is intended makes most of the
choices straight forward. The main consideration is what the
nest will be lined with. Close at hand, there is a ready supply
of yielding moss; add dry grass and stray feathers, and a soft
lining to the bijou residence is created. The result is a
comfortable, desirable and well-appointed dwelling in which to
raise a brood of house martins. Let’s hope that they are as
successful as they were last year.
Most mornings at this time of
the year when I arrive at school and cross the playground
heading in the direction of Class 1, there is a blackbird
perched at the very top of a tree close to the pond; it’s not
possible to get any higher in this tree. From this vantage
point, he pours out a stream of liquid melody. The tree he
favours is not the largest or the tallest tree around. What
appears to attract this discerning bird to this tree is its
shape. The topmost part of the tree rises above its immediate
neighbours in a form that suggests a pyramid or cone. Thus, when
the blackbird is in position on this natural pinnacle it can be
both clearly seen and plainly heard. He always faces the same
way and the mellifluous, fluty song that it pours into the
morning air seems almost visible, mingling with the other songs
in the morning chorus that has been filling the airwaves from
the moment just before the new day has dawned.
The school is also popular
among house sparrows. Although the house sparrow is reported as
being in decline in some places of the UK, our population of
gregarious sparrows remains fairly constant in its number. Given
the age and the material from which it is constructed, they
favour the older, Victorian, part of the school: dislodged
stones under the wall plate admit entry to cosy crevices within
the thick walls; and so the old building offers many
opportunities for nest building; there is much squabbling for
the most desirable locations from which generations of cheeky
sparrows have been raised and eventually fledged.
One of their most amusing
antics – perhaps it’s unfair to call it frolicsome given its
importance in maintaining good health – to watch is their
bathing, whether in water or the dust - this is not as prurient
as it sounds as at all times they maintain their modesty by not
removing their feathered coats; and sometimes there’s a good old
social sing-song. All that seems to be lacking is an old joanna
and a pianist on the edge of intoxification struggling to
maintain his dignity. What these cheeky chappies lack in
colourful plumage they more than make up for with their
mischievous behaviour. Disputes over the crumbs that have
spilled from packed lunches flare up in an instant; but these
spats are usually short-lived as the antagonists realize that
there’s more than enough to go round, and harmony is restored –
for now.
By Ean Lawrence
(Whitstone Whistler June 2010)
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Otters |
Otters are shy retiring creatures aren’t they? Not a bit of
it....at least our local Bude otters aren’t. Up until recently
I had only seen an otter in the wild once, some years ago, on
the Isle of Mull, now I seem to be tripping over them all the
time, not literally of course. These are not just fleeting,
distant views either, but up close and personal.
I walk along the Bude Canal quite regularly with our dog, about
once a week, and over the past month or so I have seen an otter
on five occasions. One sighting near Whalesborough Farm Lock
the otter was no more than a few feet away from me and at one
point was nose to nose with the dog, neither of them seemed
bothered by this. The otter continued to feed, with its
characteristic rolling ‘duck dive’, surfacing a few seconds
later with a fish which it held between its paws and chewed as
it nonchalantly paddled backwards along the canal whilst keeping
an eye on us. On another occasion at Hele Bridge there was
quite a crowd of onlookers watching an otter feeding for about
20 minutes. It was making excursions underwater near the edge
of the canal and under the bridge then returning to the bank to
consume what it had caught, gradually working its way towards
Marhamchurch.
Otters used to be quite a rarity in many parts of the country in
the 1960’s but have recovered well in many places since the use
of
organochlorine pesticides in farming was banned in the 1970’s
but there are still only around 10,000 otters in the UK and it
remains a near endangered species across its range, which
actually is huge. The same species we see, the Eurasian otter (Lutra
lutra), is found in parts of three continents: Europe, Asia
and Africa. Devon has long been a stronghold for otters and the
population there has fully recovered but inevitably this is
leading to an increasing number of otter-human conflicts. This
time the threat is from road accidents. I have read that over
50 otters are killed on the roads every year in Devon although
this does not seem to be having an impact on overall population.
It has been found
that the West Country’s smaller rivers support greater fish
densities than the rivers of southern and eastern England
because of the lower levels of pollution, however with
increasing water quality in rivers across the country the otter
populations are recovering almost everywhere.
A lot has been learned about otters since the 1960’s and its
original description as a shy, nocturnal animal that couldn’t
tolerate human disturbance has proved to be quite wrong.
Certainly the Bude otters don’t seem to mind the human, or
canine, presence. As you probably know, the canal towpath is
very popular; there are people around at almost any time of year
and in most weather conditions. I think it is probably the
healthy fish population in the canal which has allowed the otter
population to thrive and I hope the fish stocks remain high
enough to satisfy both the otters and the local anglers. I am
told there is probably only one otter family on the canal but
I’m sure there must be others in the area and I hope that we can
continue to have close encounters with this charismatic animal.
(Whitstone Whistler March 2010) |
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Bird
Watching |
It all started when we attended an evening class
on Ornithology in 1976 and I never realised what a fascinating
hobby it would become. It began by identifying the birds by
reference to photo's taken by the tutor and then discussing the
individual bird’s habitat and lifestyle.
It soon became obvious that birds were in a
particular location primarily for the food they were feeding on
and the breeding habitat. We were taken on various field
trips to identify birds in their environment and began to
realise that spotting them was a bit more difficult than seeing
photos displayed in a classroom. However with some practice and
a great deal of help it seemed that there was always at least
one major feature on every species that gave it away. This
ranged from colour on the body, colour of leg or bill, how they
flew or sang. This was all summed up as the ‘jiz’ of a bird.
We joined the Bristol Ornithological club
which had over 700 members and later I was on the committee and
became Treasurer.
We have always kept records of the birds we have
identified and to date we have seen 308 different species in the
field in the UK. We are not ‘twitchers’ as we prefer just to go
at our own pace and see the birds for ourselves. Twitchers
incidentally are those birders who, having heard there is a rare
bird in a particular location, will travel, sometimes a great
distance, to tick that bird on their list.
We moved to Whitstone 3 years ago and we have
been pleasantly surprised at the number of different species
seen in and from our garden in Paradise Park. To date we have
seen 32 species, some of which are quite regular visitors. There
is a good flock of Siskins that visit our nut and seed feeders
on a daily basis together with the regular Greenfinch, Chaffinch
and Tit families. The occasional visitor is the Great Spotted
Wood-pecker and to our absolute delight on 9 June last year we
had a Red Kite fly low over the garden being chased by a crow.
It is great fun to see a young bird sitting on our patio waiting
for his mother to feed him or to see all the different species
feeding alongside each other. It is like having our own aviary
outside the window.
We enjoy visiting the local cliffs together with
the Marshes and Maer Lake at Bude where once again a good range
of birds can be seen. Birds such as Golden Plover, Water
Rail, Little Egret and Grasshopper Warbler to name some of the
more unusual species.
This is a short summary of one of our hobbies
which we hope may encourage you to take up and get the enjoyment
we have experienced.
By Keith and Fran Slade
(Whitstone Whistler November 2009) |
Permission to use
the bird
images has kindly been given by
Cornwall Bird Watching and Preservation Society
Mouse over for the name of the photographer
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