Signs of the times: Summer #24 - and a farewell to all that!

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

"See how steadfastly they stand

the cormorants of Lympstone Sand

in ranks, like booties on parade,

with all their better parts displayed.

They face up nobly to the wind

and neatly tuck their tails behind

and number off from left to right.

Their hearts are true. Their eyes are bright.

They never twitch or jig about

But hold their heads high, chest puffed out

and perk their bills up, if you please,

to smackbang forty five degrees.

These cormorant of Lympstone Sand

defer to none in all the land

nor ever let their bearing flag

lest some fond souls might think them shag."

Ralph Rochester, "Cormorant"

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 24
Oh, why has Summer felt like such a long season (in blogland, at least)? Here we are in November and I have FINALLY reached the final picture in the Ladybird Summer book! I find it interesting that the final three pictures have been around the seashore. I think that old Charles Tunnicliffe was well aware that, in terms of the approach of Autumn in Britain, as well as the harvest, the shortening days and the fall of dead leaves, the arrival of the birds that will spend the winter here is another key indicator – and they must, of necessity arrive first at the coast! While many species, like the redwings and fieldfares, will move on inland, the wading birds and many of the waterfowl will stay largely on the coast where, even in very cold winters, they will generally be able to feed on our many large estuaries. Hence, the selection of this image as the closing chapter of Summer in this (somewhat extended!) coverage of the Ladybird Summer book.


This picture is exclusively about birds – waders and waterfowl, gathered around the half buried ribs of a large wooden ship. A cormorant stands on one of the ribs drying its wings, lifting them into a breeze. Left of the centre of the picture, a solitary grey plover stands near some bar-tailed godwits, under the wooden ribs. Below them, a larger flock of knots stands, with a large flock of knot banking and turning against the slate grey sky in the background. In the foreground, a small flock of young sanderlings has landed down by the waterline.


I’ve always been really rubbish at identifying wading birds, especially the ones that arrive here in the winter, so it is lucky that the book provides text to tell me what is what here. In fact, the cormorant (which is not a wader anyway) is the only species here that I’d be confident in identifying without recourse to a bird book! So let’s start there…


A common, native, year-round resident fish-eating waterbird, the cormorant (Latin name: Phalacrocorax carbo) is a species that can raise high passions amongst the angling fraternity, where it is perceived to be a major consumer of the fish species also sought by trout fishermen. My old AA Book of Birds describes the cormorant, rather colourfully, as follows:

“Voracious, large-beaked, reptilian in appearance, the cormorant can consume more than its own weight of fish in a day.”

It’s a great line but it isn’t true (although the belief is probably still widespread among anglers. Managing conflicts between predators of commercially important prey species and the human exploiters of those prey is one of the key challenges for conservation in the UK (hen harriers/ red grouse, or peregrines/ racing pigeons also spring to mind) and the importance of good, sound, scientific evidence in developing policies to tackle these conflicts can’t be underestimated. And there has been quite a lot of research into the importance of cormorants as predators of stillwater fisheries in Britain, for example, from Loch Leven in east central Scotland. What is clear that male cormorants weigh 2-3 kg, while females are in the range 1.7-2.5 kg, and they usually require 4-500g of fish a day, well less than their own body weight. If you want a good explanation of the issues and how fishery managers are recommended to deal with their cormorant “problem”, there was a very useful fact sheet produced in England by the Fisheries and Angling Conservation Trust, along with a wide range of environmental, angling and conservation organisations. The most up-to-date information on trends in cormorant numbers is provided by the British Trust for Ornithology which suggests that the trend is for an increasing population, with over 9000 breeding pairs in the period 1998-2002. The BTO also says: “There was a 10% increase in the UK population between full surveys in 1985–88 and 1998–2002 … Trends during 1986–2005 show decreases in Scotland and in northeast and southwest England, but no trend in Wales, and steep increases inland in England and in regions bordering the northern part of the Irish Sea... Reasons for recent decline probably include increased mortality from licensed and unlicensed shooting.” The overall increase in population size was 37% between 1995 and 2008:

(From: British Trust for Ornithology)

 Coming back to the bird in this picture, unlike many waterbirds, the cormorant’s plumage is, somewhat inconveniently for a diving, fish-eating waterbird, not waterproof, hence the reason that they often stand on rocks or, as here, other waterside structures, wings out-stretched to dry off in the wind after fishing.


The solitary Grey Plover (Pluvialis squatarola), on the centre-left of the picture is, for all its drab winter plumage shown here, a representative of a rather interesting species. I can’t do better than quote, again, from the AA Book of Birds: “The grey plover, drab in its grey-brown winter plumage and sometimes looking the picture of dejection as it waits on the mud-banks for the tide to turn, is a vastly different bird on its breeding grounds in northern Russia and Siberia. There, in its handsome summer plumage – grey-spangled, white-edged and black-breasted – it plunges and tumbles acrobatically in the air and will boldly attack marauding skuas that come too near its nest.” So, there’s more to this little tundra-loving, Cossack of a wading bird than meets the eye…


The BTO reports that around 53000 grey plover spend their winter in Britain, with perhaps 70000 passing through on migration and that, globally and in Europe, the species is not of conservation concern (although it has an “amber” warning status here in the UK – although it doesn’t say exactly why! Just something about Britain having an important non-breeding population). In winter, it feeds on our estuaries and coasts, mostly on marine worms, crustaceans and molluscs. From the above, I would say it seems unlikely that it has declined since the publication of these Ladybird books, but it is hard to be sure from the published evidence I can find. I did find, in the “Birds of the Western Palearctic”, however, that there has been a major recent increase (recent in their terms, being in the 1990s!) in the grey plover population of north-west Europe, this presumably including Britain.


Standing under the cormorant is a flock of five bar-tailed godwits (Limosa lapponica), which will have arrived on this British shore from Scandinavia or northern Russia, again to spend the winter here (or perhaps in transit to a destination much further south, using the British estuaries as staging posts, to rest and refuel on their migration flight. Like the grey plover, another wading bird that appears drab in winter plumage, the male bar-tailed godwit has a magnificent pale chest in the summer breeding season. The “Birds of the Westrn Palearctic” reports maybe 60,800 individuals in Britain in winter, while the BTO reports 62,000 winter birds. This species is not of conservation concern at European or Global level and its population may have increased within its breeding range. Interestingly, the BTO reports that, quite remarkably, Bar-tailed godwits from Alaska over-winter in New Zealand, but make the 11,000 km journey without stopping, which takes around seven days, probably the longest non-stop journey of any bird.


The largest flock on the shore is the small pale grey wading bird known as the knot (Calidris canutus). Yet again, this tiny wader makes enormous migratory journeys, from their breeding grounds in the far north of the Arctic in huges flocks to over-winter further south, arriving on Britain’s coasts in late summer and on into October. Many are only here on passage to further south, but huge flocks do remain for the winter. In fact, the BTO provides a figure, for the British wintering knot population, of 284,000!

What Charles Tunnicliffe has done in this picture is to include the knot, both as a flock in the foreground, but also as a massive wheeling flock in flight in the background, against the slate-grey sky. I grew up watching such unbelievably massive flocks of knot as a common winter sight on Aberlady Bay, east of Edinburgh, where I spent many cold winter and hot summer childhood days plodding across the nature reserve, my “Boots the Chemist” 8x30 binoculars in hand. Knot form these massive flocks, presumably for the same reasons as starlings are thought to do so – to reduce their individual chances of being taken by a raptor, most likely a peregrine falcon, and maybe because, by spending time roosting together, they are able to reduce heat loss and hence conserve energy during cold weather. And just like starling flocks, knots in flight wheel and bank apparently nearly simultaneously, with the effect that they flash light as you see all of their undersides turn towards you at once, the almost disappearing as they wheel back in the opposite direction, their darker backs against dark winter clouds. And the flock produces a hissing of wings if you are lucky enough to be near one in flight. One of Britain’s great estuarine spectacles, in my view, and one that is worth seeking out if you have the chance.


And so, and so, to conclude this series of blogs on the Ladybird Summer book, one final candidate species, in the nearest foreground of the picture, a small flock of ten young sanderlings. Yet another wader that breeds in the Arctic and comes to British coasts in the winter, where it prefers sandy shores, the sanderling (Canutus alba) can be described as a small pale wader that scurries along the tide line, restlessly looking for food, in the form of the small crustaceans of sandy beaches. In reading around for this article, I discovered a little bit of biological trivia that ties in with this distinctive movement of the sanderling: according to the BTO, “Uniquely amongst British waders, the Sanderling has no hind toe - giving it a distinctive running action, rather like a clockwork toy, as it darts away from incoming waves on the beach edge”! Perhaps 21,000 birds spend the winter here and the BTO describes little conservation concern over the status of this species in Britain, Europe or globally. Nice to end the Summer book and its blog posts on a small positive note!

Thanks for reading along so far, and for all the interesting comments. Hopefully, you’ll stay with me as I head into the Autumn book 9and try to catch up with the seasons bit – I DID start the Spring book late and have been playing catch up the whole time! On, on to Autumn (p.s. It is snowing heavily outside tonight! Did anyone see where Autumn went?)...

Signs of the times: Summer #23

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

“Kali frae Bali in classroom three,

 Swallaes her chippataes wi a cup o tea.
Dod Jean an Donna sit doon tae dine,

On a parten an a labster frae the ocean brine.”


From: "Doric Food Rap" by Sheena Blackhall

 

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 23
Here we are again, still at the shore and in a rock pool AGAIN! I’m not really sure what the purpose of this picture is in the set of Summer pictures as we’ve looked at rock pools already on a couple of occasions. These later pictures are meant to be taking the reader towards Autumn (and the next book in the series), when the rock pooling summer holidays season is long gone…

My, this is a busy rock pool full of crustaceans, with a large lobster, an edible crab, a hermit crab inhabiting an old common whelk shell, a large prawn and a smaller shrimp (in the bottom right). I can’t tell what species the little shrimps/prawns belong to, so, other than to note that there are unlikely to have been significant declines in these species in the last 50 years (just my professional opinion!), I don’t intend to say more about them here.

The lobster shown here is a member of the famous, gastronomically-popular “common” lobster species(Homarus gammarus), for which Scotland’s rocky coastline supports a small but, given the high commercial value of individual lobsters, significant commercial fishery. The Scottish Government publishes annual fishery statistics, including a report of the total tonnage of lobster landed. In 2009, 1100 tonnes of lobsters were landed at Scottish fishing ports, little changed from the previous few years. For comparison, the 1960 fishery statistics reveal that 889 tonnes of lobsters were landed in Scotland by British and foreign vessels, more or less the same as in 2007, so perhaps lobsters are fished at a level that their population and productivity can tolerate, there apparently being little change in the last 50 years in the weight removed by the fishery in Scottish coastal waters. In its deep, lower shore rock pool, this particular lobster may well be safe from such fisheries but not necessarily from hand-collecting by divers. Lobsters in UK waters may be found down to about 60 metres depth.

The edible crab (Cancer pagurus), the one that has a shell that looks not unlike a pie crust (!), is also a widespread species around Scotland’s coast, which also supports a significant commercial fishery. In Scotland, the edible crab is also traditionally known as a "parten" or a "parten crab" - I only just found out that the word "Parten" in Scots Gaelic means "crab"!

The most recent fishery statistics published by the Scottish Government show that 9500 tonnes of edible crabs were landed in Scotland by UK vessels. By comparison, 1960 fishery statistics for Scotland indicated that 32,556 British hundredweight, or 1654 tonnes, of crabs were landed. Now, unlike lobster, the modern edible crab catch is much larger (nearly six times higher) than the 1960 figure. This may indicate that the fishery was underexploited in 1960, compared to the level of fishing it could tolerate. It might also indicate that the fishery has become more efficient (most of them have – I once read that there is an estimated 2% per year improvement in fishing efficiency as a result of “technological creep”). Without contradicting that previous statement, it might also mean that the edible crab fishery is taking more crabs out of the system than is sustainable in the long-term, although the figures from 2005 – 2009 are relatively stable, so who knows? I really don’t know very much about how we regulate shellfish fisheries in Scotland – there may or may be a quota for edible crabs.

Hermit crabs, of which there are several species in British coastal waters, are well-known for their habit of protecting their soft bodies within the old shells of dead gastropod molluscs (“snails”) such as, here, the common whelk Buccinum undatum. As they grow they have to move into increasingly larger shells and as a result they have been used in many choice and competition experiments by ecological researchers. I think hermit crabs might just be one of the most popular elements of rock pool fauna for young children when they go rock pooling (I speak from distant personal experience). There’s something very entrancing about their lifestyle, with its recurring need to keep finding a new home.

 

Signs of the times: Summer #22

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

“With blotched brown uppers and undersides light gray

They feed on sea weed beaches all the day

Some times in pairs or small flocks though seldom one alone

These little wandering birds called Turnstone.”

Francis Duggan, from “On seeing a pair of turnstone”

 

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 22
The last three pictures in the Ladybird Summer book, this one and the following two are hardly typical Summer scenes, although this picture and the final one are definitely meant to represent some transition to Autumn (as you’ll see again in a couple of posts’ time). This picture is a relatively simple scene, with a flock of little brown, black and white wading birds, called turnstones, foraging through some brown seaweeds, or wracks (knotted or egg wrack, bladder wrack and saw wrack). In the background, another flock of turnstones is flying away, looking like mini-oystercatchers. Some common mussels (sometimes called blue mussels) are visible under the wracks.


The turnstone (Arenaria interpres) is a common bird on British shores in Winter, as well as a passage migrant recorded in Spring and Autumn. As my old "AA Book of Birds" says of this species: “The greatest numbers gather on rocky and stony beaches, where the seaweed covers a rich supply of food.” The name “turnstone” comes from their habit of flipping over stones, sticks, shells and seaweed to uncover their prey of sandhoppers (the little jumping shrimps you commonly see when you move seaweed or driftwood on the tideline), little shellfish, insects, young fish and carrion, and they have also been recorded as eating bird’s eggs. They can turn over stones nearly equal in weight to their own body. The foremost individual in the picture is still in summer plumage, while the others have clearly moulted to reveal their more drab winter colours. In summer, nearly all the turnstones that have over-wintered in Britain return north to the Arctic to breed, so these birds in the picture are either on passage or have arrived here to over-winter.

My usual source of trend information of birds for this blog, the British Trust for Ornithology, unfortunately doesn’t have an entry for this species. But my bird book, “The Birds of the Western Palearctic” reports that the British wintering population is a minimum estimated 44,500 birds. It also suggests that there is no real idea of the total European population as many birds inhabit remote unsurveyed rocky shores of Iceland, Ireland and Norway. Since no sources that I regularly access for this series of posts provides any indication of a decline, I thought I’d be unable to comment on the status of the turnstone. At the last minute, however, coming unbidden through the postal system, like the US 7th Cavalry coming over the hill in the nick of time (but without the unfortunate anti-Native American connotations of that historical analogy, obviously!), a report arrived – the 2010 State of the UK’s Birds report. Produced by a long list of conservation agencies and bodies (including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology), this indicates that between 1981 and 2007, the turnstone overwintering population in the UK has increased by some 17%, although in the last ten years there has been a 6% decline.


I’m not going to say much about any of the brown wracks or the common mussels – they are all very common species, likely all still to be doing very well, thank you very much, and all deserve more attention than I can give them here. If you want to look for yourself, I recommend once again that you look at the MARLIN website (Marine Life Information), where you can find information on the distribution and biology of these species.

Signs of the times: Summer #21

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

“In Flanders fields the poppies grow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.”

Colonel John McRae, “In Flanders Fields”, 1915

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 21
Well, here we are, confronted by an image of a Summer that is long gone, although… although… just over a week ago, on a train journey from Edinburgh to Stirling, I saw a farmer collecting a very late season harvest of silage – hey, it’s still Summer after all! (No it isn’t – there was snow on the mountains around Stirling this morning…)




This is a really lovely image, bursting with life and colour. A big flock of house sparrows is raiding the seeds from ripe wheat. Around the margins of the wheat field, the yellow ragwort and creeping thistle are growing interspersed with red poppies. On the ragwort are feeding the black and yellow striped caterpillars of the cinnabar moth, and common blue butterflies flutter from flower to flower.


As we’ve looked at the decline (and possible subsequent rise) of the house sparrow in an earlier Spring post, here, this post will focus more on the flowers of agricultural land and field margins, and their associated insects.


The red flowering Common poppy (Latin name: Papaver rhoeas) is, according to Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica, one of the world’s most successful “weeds” and has “followed and exploited the spread of farming across the globe so comprehensively that no one is sure of its native home.” An annual plant, it is found in arable fields and on other disturbed habitats. And it is that habitat preference that meant that, as the first early city-based societies formed 4-5000 years ago in the Middle East around a growing culture driven by arable agriculture, the common poppy was there and ready to benefit from this massive and relatively rapid increase in the area of its habitat.

And just thinking about the importance of natural processes influencing culture, it is that habitat preference of growing in disturbed soils that led to the iconic image of the red poppy as a commemorative symbol for the dead of two World wars and other conflicts. The hellhole trench warfare battlefields of World War One in northern France and Belgium, with their shell-torn and trench-riven land surface, created huge areas of disturbed soils that were colonized by millions and millions of red poppies, leading to the adoption of the red poppy as the ultimate symbol of commemoration. Richard Mabey suggests that the first common poppies probably arrived in Britain mixed in with the seed corn of the first Neolithic settlers. The New Atlas of the British and Irish flora suggests that “although there have been losses around the edges of its range, the overall distribution is remarkably stable”. This is strange, as I think the common perception amongst conservationists is probably that a major effect of the increase in the use of herbicides to control agricultural “weeds” from the 1960’s onwards was a decline in the fortunes of plant species like the common poppy. From the early 1970’s, I do have vivid memories of seeing cereal fields in East Lothian in early summer with a red dusting of poppies scattered through them, something that 10-15 years later was not a common sight. But the range could be the same with many fewer poppies as a whole, if the species remained in field margins and on other, non-agricultural, disturbed ground and also, the policy of set-aside no doubt helped the return of poppies to recolonise agricultural areas from the late 1980s onwards. A very welcome return, I say!


The Creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense) in the picture is usually found (according to the New Atlas) in “over-grazed pastures, hay meadows and rough grassy places, roadsides, arable fields and other cultivated land, and in urban habitats and waste ground.” In terms of its status, although listed as a noxious weed in Britain under the 1959 Weeds Act, there has been no change in distribution since the 1962 Atlas and probably little over many decades before that.


The Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) is species that raises high emotions in this country! As Richard Mabey says in his For a Britannica: “Ragwort is regarded as the great enemy by those who keep horses, and summer weekends spent laboriously hand-pulling and removing the plants are a regular chore to check the plant’s spread. Neither horses nor other grazing animals will normally eat the growing plant, unless it is so dense that it is difficult to graze without ingesting some, but they will when it has died and dried. Green or dry, it causes insidious and irreversible cirrhosis of the liver.” Nice! According to the New Atlas: “It is a notifiable weed, subject to statutory control, but this has clearly had little, if any, effect on its distribution or abundance.” In fact: “The distribution of S. jacobaea is unchanged from the map in the 1962 Atlas.” Interestingly, for such a supposedly noxious plant (here in Stirling, apparently, it is or was called stinking alisander), Tess Darwin, in her “Scots Herbal”, reports that, not only was it uprooted and used in a playground chasing game in the Hebrides, but it has traditionally been used for a range of medical purposes. The astringent juice was used “to treat burns, eye inflammation, sores and cancerous ulcers, as a gargle for an ulcerated throat and mouth and for bee stings.” Poultices were also made from the green leaves and applied for rheumatism, sciatica and gout, while “a decoction of the root was taken for internal bruising and wounds”. Drawing your attention back to “insidious and irreversible cirrhosis of the liver”, I say rather them than me... Common ragwort was also used to produce bronze, yellow and green dyes.


I don’t think it wouldn’t be right to talk about the Common Ragwort without also discussing the Cinnabar moth (Tyria jacobaeae), something that was obviously also on the mind of Charles Tunnicliffe, who included the orange and black striped caterpillars of the moth in the painting, doing what they normally do, feeding on the leaves of the common ragwort. Even the second part of Latin name of the moth (“jacobaeae”) tells us that the moth is “of” the ragwort! As reported by Butterfly Conservation’s report, “State of Britain’s Larger Moths”, the Cinnabar is one of the most familiar larger moths “on account of its attractive black and red wings and because of its distinctive orange and black banded caterpillars found on ragwort.” This moth species is widespread and common in southern Britain, but its distribution in Scotland is more local and coastal. Butterfly Conservation does report, however, that its populations have suffered a long-term decrease of 83% over 35 years, marking the species as “Vulnerable” according to the conservation criteria of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). It isn’t clear why this is happening, since the overall distribution of ragwort, its host plant, remains relatively unchanged, as reported above.

Both the adult moth and the caterpillars taste bitter to birds that eat them, and the coloration (the bright red on adults, and the black and orange stripes – a common warning coloration in nature!) may be intended to deter predation. This species is the first one for which I understood that there could be plant-insect interactions that meant that some insects were dependent on specific species of plant. When, as a young boy, I used to accompany my Dad when he was out patrolling as a countryside ranger, we would see ragwort plants growing in the dune grasslands (for example, at Yellowcraig, near North Berwick), covered in cinnabar caterpillars (which we never saw anywhere else, on any other plant). By the end of the Summer, a large proportion of the ragwort plants were (and still are) stripped down by the caterpillars to bare, leafless, flowerless stalks.


On those childhood trips where I began to learn through observation about the natural history of dune grasslands we would usually see numerous Common blue butterflies (Polyommatus icarus), perhaps not surprisingly, as it is one of Britain’s commonest species. Its caterpillars feed on bird’s foot trefoil, clover and related species. Butterfly Conservation has reported, in its State of Butterflies in Britain and Ireland, that, despite some evidence of decline at a local scale, nearly all the places where it was recorded in the 1970’s, still had records between 1995 and 2004. Butterfly Conservation does highlight, however, that the Common Blue continues to face threats from habitat loss and deterioration and that its status should be closely monitored as an indicator of the state of biodiversity in the wider countryside.


I hope you’ve enjoyed this particular post – this current picture of a field of grain near harvest is, in my view, a joy to look at, and it represents the last clearly summery picture in the Ladybird Summer book. The three final images from the Summer book look increasingly Autumnal, as you will see over the next few days.

Signs of the times: Summer #20

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

“Relatives are the worst friends, said the fox as the dogs took off after it.”

Anonymous Danish proverb

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 20
A moorland scene that could be from Scotland, Yorkshire or, at the time the book was published, Cumberland. Let us, from my Scottish bias, assume it is a Scottish moorland. A small flock of red grouse look on as a red fox, a potential predator, is running off to the right of the picture. A dipper sits on a rock in the stream, above some small brown trout sitting in the current. Both the bell heather and the ling heather are in flower, with small dark blue fruit growing on the bilberry plants in the bottom right. A high-brown fritillary butterfly flutters nearby, while an emperor moth caterpillar is feeding on the ling heather. We’ve looked at the brown trout in an earlier post, here, so I won’t discuss it again now.


The red grouse (Latin name: Lagopus lagopus) is a native game bird, the distinctive dark-winged scotica race being endemic to Britain and Ireland and with the great majority of its population within the UK. Those unfamiliar with it may well recognize it as the cartoon caricature bird that stars in the amusing adverts for “The Famous Grouse” blended Scottish whisky. The British Trust for Ornithology describes how the red grouse is economically very important to some rural communities as a game bird and has benefited from intensive management of many moorlands, designed specifically to increase the numbers of grouse available to be shot. There are no accurate survey figures for red grouse populations going back to 1960, but BTO shows that there have been fluctuations in red grouse populations, but no overall trend, since 1994:

(From: British Trust for Ornithology)

Shooting bags, from figures collated by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust,  (i.e. the number reported as having been shot) have revealed long-term declines, apparently driven by the loss of heather moorland, increased predation from corvids (crows and ravens) and foxes, and an increasing incidence of viral disease. In conservation terms, this decline resulted in the moving of this species from the “green” (safe) list to the “amber” list. The BTO’s account does an excellent job of summarizing the complex and complicated interaction of natural processes and human interference affecting grouse:  “Longer-term trends in Red Grouse abundance are overlain by cycles, with periods that vary regionally, linked to the dynamics of infection by a nematode parasite ... Raptor predation is believed not to affect breeding populations significantly, although it can reduce numbers in the post-breeding period ... Hen Harriers in particular can reduce grouse shooting bags, limit grouse populations and cause economic losses to moor owners, and have been subject to much illegal persecution ... Finding a solution to the harrier–grouse conflict would bring considerable benefits to the management of the UK's heather moorlands and have broad implications for the conservation of predators.”


And on the subject of predators of red grouse… Most people probably don’t think about it in these terms, but the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is Britain’s only surviving native wild dog species, following the elimination of the last wolf in the 18th Century and, possibly, the prehistoric retreat northwards of arctic foxes with the retreat of the ice fields of the last Ice Age. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee’s review of British mammals provides an estimate of the fox population of Britain as around 240,000, of which Scotland has around 23,000. The JNCC reports that the fox population of Britain is probably still growing, including the phenomenon of urban foxes. As you’ll know if you watch the BBC Springwatch programmes which always seem to feature films of them, foxes are increasingly found in urban habitats, with around 3000 urban foxes estimated in Scotland.

A few winters ago, we had a resident fox living in or around our garden, much to the frustration and occasional excitement of Ella the Wonder Dog. It made its way around the area on the top of the six foot high walls between the gardens and, where we had a large growth of ivy growing over the top of the wall, it used to sleep there, under the ivy cover, curled up with its large tail (or brush) wrapped around it. Occasionally we would see, reflected in our torch light, a single shining eye open up to check that we weren’t approaching too closely, but otherwise it ignored us completely... whereas every time the fox was “staying”, Ella ran back and forward in a frustrated growling frenzy, at the bottom of the wall!


No doubt there is still active game-keepering activity on the grouse moors of Britain, perhaps accounting for the nervous disposition of the fox in this picture! There’s lots more to say about the fox’s place in British ecology and culture, but the fox, and fox-hunting feature in the Autumn book, we’ll revisit this later in the year (but not too much later).


The dipper (Cinclus cinclus) is the little dark brown, chestnut brown and white bird standing on the rock in the stream. It is unique among the passerine (or perching) birds of Britain as the only one that feeds from the bottom of streams and rivers, plunging in, walking upstream into the current and feeding on riverine insect larvae and other stream invertebrates ( it isn’t the ONLY species that dives into freshwaters to feed though – consider the kingfisher!). The BTO provides a picture of the long-term fate of Britain’s dipper population. Dipper populations have fluctuated over the last thirty years, but with an overall downward trend:

(From: British Trust for Ornithology)

Dippers are very sensitive to the acidification of rivers (from acid rain), which leads to the loss of their invertebrate prey. Not surprisingly, the acid rain problems of the 1970’s badly affected dippers in the uplands where acidification was worst. Since 1975, there has been a 30% decline in the dipper population, although there is probably now an ongoing recovery from acid rain problems in many of Britain’s worst affected freshwaters in recent years (I can find you evidence if you need it!). I speculated previously here on the possible recovery of dippers. In our recent Corsican adventure, we were surprised (presumably unreasonably so) and delighted (not unreasonably) to see dippers regularly in the rocky river running through the mountain city of Corte.


The overwhelmingly dominant plant in this picture is heather. The painting purports to show two species, bell heather (Erica cinerea) and ling heather (Calluna vulgaris). Erica cinerea, named bell heather on account of its small purple bell-like flowers has ,according to the New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora, declined in southern England from loss of heathland habitat, and has disappeared from many former 'chalk heath' sites through encroachment of rank grass and scrub following reduction in sheep and rabbit grazing. The ling heather (Calluna vulgaris) is also reported in the New Atlas to have declined as suitable habitat has declined greatly, particularly in much of England, “since 1950 through loss of heathland to forestry, agriculture, mineral workings and scrub. It cannot tolerate continued heavy grazing, and has declined in some upland areas for this reason.”


According to Tess Darwin, in “The Scots Herbal”: “Of all Scottish wild plants, the prize usefulness must surely go to heather. In a typical dwelling in many parts of Scotland until this century, heather might have been found in the walls, thatch, beds, fire, floor mats, ale, tea, baskets, medicine chest and dye pot, being used to sweep the house and chimney, to feed and bed down sheep and cattle and to weave into fences around the farm”. Phew! Also, very sagely, she points out that, while many people consider heather to be just as much of an emblem of Scotland as the thistle, although heather moorland is “an artificial and degraded landscape created by deforestation and maintained by over-grazing of sheep and deer and burning for grouse management.” Phew!


The bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) in the extreme bottom right of the picture, known in Scotland as the blaeberry and in Shropshire and the Welsh Marches as the wimberry, is also a member of the Heather family. Blaeberries are an important wild food resource, the collection of which in Britain took a bit of a dent following the contamination of many British upland areas by the Chernobyl explosion’s fallout. Tess Darwin points out that, as well as a food source, in Scotland, they have also been used as a treatment for kidney stones and as a dark purple blue dye for cloth. The New Atlas reports declines in the blueberry from the edge of its range: “in England since 1950, reflecting the loss of lowland heathland. It has also declined in C[entral] Ireland, probably for the same reasons. Elsewhere it remains common in suitable habitats.” My wife is obsessed with harvesting blaeberries when we find ourselves among fruiting bushes when out hill-walking. In such circumstances, there is little point in me expecting to go any further for some considerable time.


Just to finish off this rather long post, there are two insects featured, the high brown fritillary butterfly and the caterpillar of the emperor moth. The high brown fritillary (Argynnis adippe) has, since the 1970’s, suffered the greatest distribution decrease of any surviving butterfly species in Britain and is now one of our most threatened species. The NGO for butterflies, Butterfly Conservation reports a 79% decline in distribution, and a decline of 85% in monitored populations between 1995 and 2004. This may all be down to changes in the way that moorland and upland forest edge habitats have been managed, as positive habitat management in England has brought about local increases in populations. The emperor moth (Saturnia pavonia) is common across Europe and its caterpillar feeds on bramble, heather and other shrubs. I couldn’t find any detail about how it is doing in Britain, although I did read that emperor moth males can detect the pheromones of the females up to five miles away.

Signs of the times: Summer #19

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."

W. C. Fields

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 19
As you’ll have seen from my recent posts about our Corsican trip, I’ve had a reptile-rich time in the past few weeks. So it is quite a pleasure to see a snake taking centre spot in the next Summer picture. This adder is sitting basking in the sun in a coastal dune system, rich with beautiful flowering plants. A grayling butterfly has settled on the flowers of thyme in the foreground.


In the very top left of the picture, closer to the sea and growing on more unstable sand is marram grass (Latin name: Ammophila arenaria), one of the plant species that helps to stabilize mobile sand dunes, which ultimately assists the other plant species in the picture to colonise and grow in this habitat. This stabilizing attribute has also led to this species being deliberately planted to help restore blow-outs in sand dune systems, or to help with the building of dunes for coastal protection purposes. Marram is beautifully adapted for life in this harsh, dry environment. It has a thick and waxy cuticle on its leaf to prevent water loss, and the leaf is rolled into a tight tube to reduce the exposure of leaf surface to dehydrating winds. The New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora indicates that, since 1962, the overall distribution of this species is largely unchanged, the deliberate planting having had little effect on this.


The little pink-purple flowers of the wild thyme (Thymus polytrichus) are scattered throughout the picture. According to the New Atlas, it is a “perennial herb of free-draining, calcareous or base-rich substrates, including chalk, limestone, sands and gravels. It occurs in short grassland on heaths, downland, sea-cliffs and sand dunes, and around rock outcrops and hummocks in calcareous mires. It is also frequent in upland grassland and on montane cliffs, rocks and ledges”. Although the Atlas says that there is some evidence for losses in the southern part of its range, wild thyme remains very common in suitable habitats. The concentration of the aromatic volatile oil thymol in this wild species is high enough to allow the use of this species in cooking (we’ve used it while camping). According to Richard Mabey in his Flora Britannica, it was sometimes used in Scotland as a substitute for lavender to sent clothes, handkerchiefs and household linen.


In the top-right of the picture are a couple of carline thistles (Carlina vulgaris), a distinctive plant of short, dry grasslands such as this one. The New Atlas says that it has suffered a widespread decline, with most losses having occurred since 1950. “Losses are partly due to habitat destruction and a lack of grazing”. It is very restricted in its distribution in Scotland, to a few coastal sites, although much more widely spread inland in England.


In the bottom right and to the left of the adder are the yellow flowers of the lady’s bedstraw (Galium verum), which can be found in suitable habitats from June to September (phew – I’m not completely off-schedule yet!). Flora Britannica collates interesting uses for this plant – it dries to give the smell of new-mown hay and in full flower, it smells strongly of honey. Its name probably comes from the custom of putting it in straw mattresses, especially for the beds of women going into labour. It also has coagulant properties and provided a vegetable substitute for rennet in cheese making. In fact, this was obviously a widespread use – Tess Darwin, in her book “The Scots Herbal. The Plant Lore of Scotland” reports a Scottish name “keeslip” (= cheeseslip) and the Gaelic name “lus an leasaich” (= rennet plant). In a link to this post’s coverage of sand dune plants, Tess Darwin also includes a report from an 18th Century traveller to the Isle of Barra in the Western Isles, where the collection of the extensive growths of this species, for use in dyeing of tweed, was leading to the erosion of the machair grasslands, indicating both another important historical use and the binding effect of its root system. In fact, collection of lady’s bedstraw was banned there to prevent erosion. The New Atlas reports that, although there have been some localised declines in this species since 1962, it remains common across much of its range and is a frequent constituent of wild-flower seed mixtures.


The adder (Vipera berus) is Britain’s only venomous snake which is rarely dangerous but can deliver a painful bite. It is widespread in heathlands across Britain. In Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage says of the adder:  “They are widespread but absent from much of the Central Lowlands, the Outer Hebrides and Northern Isles. Adders are found on heathland, moors, the borders of woods and fields, overgrown quarries and railway embankments. They tend to bask around sunny edges of dense ground vegetation, which provides a good source of warmth and deep cover, into which they can quickly escape when disturbed. They are absent from areas of intensive arable farming.” The BBC website has some useful background information on the adder here.


For an assessment of the status of the adder in Britain (in conservation terms), I went to the website of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, here.  According to this source, this snake species is still persecuted as well as suffering from habitat fragmentation, afforestation, public pressure, inappropriate habitat management and (inevitably) development and general tidying of the countryside. Severe declines in several English counties have already been reported ( Warks, Worcs, Wyre Forest, London, Herts). Adder population decreases have been recorded in all English regions studied, but were was most marked in the Midlands. For example, the only known adder site in Nottingham was damaged by forestry works in 2003 and the current status of that population is unknown, and monitoring in the Wyre Forest has detected decreases in the number of populations and of individuals within them (from 150-200 individuals in the early 1990s to 20-30 individuals in 2004-5- despite this being a protected site).


In Scotland, a good general publication on Scotland’s reptiles and amphibians can been found here. For Scotland, we are fortunate also to have a report on the status of the adder in Scotland, commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage, which you can see here. Unfortunately, it is quite dated, having been published in 1994 (while I worked for SNH, although I had nothing to do with this report). This concluded that, at that time, the status of the adder compared favourably with that of the rest of the UK (except SW England, where the adder is common). While the adder was perceived to have declined in more intensively farmed areas, it was apparent that it had not suffered the more widespread declines reported in England during the 1980s. The report concluded that Scotland represented an important upland area in the distribution of the adder as it is not only extensive but relatively undisturbed and remote. Work is underway nationally and locally to take conservation action for adders in Scotland. For example, there is an adder action plan as part of the City of Edinburgh Biodiversity Action Plan, which you can view here, and another as part of the Dumfries and Galloway Biodiversity Action Plan, which you can read here.


The grayling butterfly (Hipparchia semele) which is sitting on the purple thyme flowers quite inconspicuously in the picture’s foreground is a member of a species that, since the 1970s, has been in serious decline. The main conservation organisation for butterflies and moths, Butterfly Conservation, in its report on the State of Butterflies in Britain and Ireland, showed that, between 1976 and 2004, the British population of this butterfly species declined by 51%, and between the two periods 1970-1982 and 1995-2004, the distribution (the number of places the species is found) has declined by 45%. Butterfly Conservation says that such a decline in this species would have been unimaginable to entomologists of a generation ago.

Possibly, the decline in coppicing of woodlands, and the consequent decline in the creation of new clearings with their early successional stages of recovering coppiced woodland, has resulted in habitat loss for the grayling butterfly. This loss might have been offset a little by the early growth of scrub habitat on brownfield (that is, previously developed and now derelict) land, some new populations of grayling butterflies have been found, for example, on such sites alongside the River Tees in Middlesbrough, where conservation action has been taken to protect the butterflies at these sites.

Signs of the times: Summer #18

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

“The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,

She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples,

Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect.”

Ted Hughes, from: "Work and Play"





(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 18
Och, a wee holiday away for two weeks and summer seems to have fled by our return at the weekend. I’d better press on! Fortunately, the main subjects of Summer picture 18 are still here in central Scotland, with the swallows and swifts still winging their way around. In the foreground, the seed heads of bulrushes (or reed-mace) from last year have burst to release their downy seeds, while this year’s new seed heads are still forming. A flock of Canada geese is swimming in the background.


Swallows and swifts have already featured in this blog series, where I looked at how they have fared here for the swallow and here, the swift. Although swifts may begin leaving for their African winter haunts much earlier in the summer, the swallow is one of the latest species to depart, mostly by late September. The gathering of noisy flocks on telephone wires is a sure sign of the impending end of the summer season and then, one day, they have mostly all gone, other than the odd straggler, perhaps the product of a later second brood.


Canada geese are not a native species to Britain. In fact, although they have been here for several hundred years and were introduced deliberately (Giant Hogweed, anyone?), they are now regarded as an invasive non-native species. The introduction must have been for ornamental reasons as Canada Geese are reputedly amongst the most inedible of birds (Move along! Move along – there’s no wild food story ‘ere”).


You can find out more about the Canada Goose problem and what is being done about it here, on an advisory site run by the Non-Native Species Secretariat for Great Britain, where you can pick Canada Goose from the list. This site characterises the problem of Canada Geese in Britain as follows:


Ecosystem Impact: Introduced geese are heavy grazers of aquatic and waterside vegetation, and their droppings can increase nutrient levels in water bodies and soils. Trampling and the addition of nutrients can change the composition of plant communities, especially where grazing is intense.


Health and Social Impact: There is considerable concern that the presence of so many large birds in close association with people, for example in urban parks, may be a health hazard. Canada geese are suspected of transmitting salmonella to cattle. The presence of slippery droppings can be a nuisance, especially on paths, playing fields or golf courses, as can possible aggression from nesting adults. Bird strikes involving Canada geese have caused human deaths and injury as well as damage to the environment and loss of or damage to aircraft.


Economic Impact:Canada geese may graze on farmland at any season, occur very widely, and may feed in areas that would be shunned by wild geese. Their grazing and trampling may cause major damage to grassland and crops. Birds climbing out from the water to graze make shallow, well-trodden paths that can damage flood defences and accelerate bankside erosion.


The British Trust for Ornithology reports, of this species: “Canada Geese were first introduced to English parkland around 1665 but have expanded hugely in range and numbers following translocations in the 1950s and 1960s. They increased rapidly, at a rate estimated at 9.3% per annum in Britain between the 1988–91 Atlas period and 2000, with no sign of any slowing in the rate of increase”. That rate of growth looks something like this:

(From: British Trust for Ornithology)

The BTO concludes that: “The economic, social and environmental impacts of rapidly expanding, non-native Canada Goose populations are of growing conservation concern across Europe” [see above!].


On a happier note, the bulrush or reedmace (Typha latifolia) in the front of the picture is a native plant, which the New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora (2002) says is: “an emergent in shallow water or on exposed mud at the edge of lakes, ponds, canals and ditches and (less frequently) by streams and rivers. It favours nutrient-rich sites. It spreads by wind-dispersed fruits, often colonising newly excavated ponds and ditches and subsequently spreading by vegetative growth”. In terms of its success, the New Atlas says of this species that there is some evidence that it increased in frequency in the 20th century in many areas, for reasons that are not entirely clear. It is now much more frequently recorded in Wales, northern England and Scotland than it was in the 1962 Atlas. Richard Mabey, in his Flora Britannica, reports that surprisingly little use has been made of Typha in Britain, confirmed by the only entry for the species in Tess Darwin’s “The Scots Herbal”, where it is reported from an early 19th century account from Orkney which reports that it was added to some poor hay mixture of local plants, of which it was said: “None but the half-starved beasts of Orkney would eat such fodder”!

Signs of the times: Summer #17

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

Daed-traa

“I go to the rockpool at the slack of the tide

to mind me what my poetry’s for.

It has its ventricles, just like us –

pumping brine, like bull’s blood, a syrupy flow.

It has its theatre –

hushed and plush.

It has its Little Shop of Horrors.

It has its crossed and dotted monsters.

It has its cross-eyed beetling Lear.

It has its billowing Monroe.

I go to the rock-pool at the slack of the tide

to mind me what my poetry’s for.

For monks, it has barnacles

to sweep the broth as it flows, with fans,

grooming every cubic millimetre.

It has its ebb, the easy heft of wrack from rock,

like plastered, feverish locks of hair.

It has its flodd.

It has its welling god

with puddled, podgy face and jaw.

It has its holy hiccup.

Its minute’s silence

daed-traa.

I go to the rockpool at the slack of the tide

to mind me what my poetry’s for.”

by Jen Hadfield From Nigh-no-Place (Bloodaxe, 2008)

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 17
I am still at the seashore for this picture, but we are under the water in a rock pool – as the text says “At low spring tides, rock pools are formed, and in these we can see – in their living, underwater state – some of the creatures whose empty shells we saw in the last picture.” Quite. Much nicer alive aren’t they? In particular, the common sea urchin (Echinus esculentus) and the closely related common starfish (Asterias rubens) are on the bottom of the rock pool, along with a live shore crab (Carcinus maenas), some snakelock anemones (Anemonia viridis), which can stand up to 5 cm tall, but with tentacles up to 15cm long, and some small barnacles (described in the text as “acorn barnacles” - which could make it one of a few species – most probably the commonest one, Semibalanus balanoides – great Latin name! Barnacles are actually little crustaceans – shrimp relatives – which have effectively settled from the plankton and glued themselves onto a rock, protecting themselves with thick, interlocking plates. They feed by forming a net from appendages that were the legs of their mobile ancestors, flicking out and trapping floating organic material. But you probably already know that – and the inevitably amusing tale about having the relatively longest penis in the animal kingdom, maybe 40 times longer than their body... who says that size doesn’t matter?


There are two other species of sea anemones in this picture – top right, the blue-grey anemones are dahlia anemones (Urticina felina), the largest of the common sea anemone species of the British Isles. This species is more of a northern species, preferring cooler waters, although found around the whole British Isles coast. The little pink blobs in the top right, among the white limpet shells (not sure which species of limpet this is meant to be), are the most common sea anemone encountered while rock-pooling, the beadlet anemone, with the Latin name of Actinia equina. They may actually be red, brown, green or orange in colour. Individuals of this species are known to be aggressive to one another, using their stinging cells to drive off other anemones that encroach on their vicinity.


The only identifiable seaweed in the picture is the large brown wavy fronds growing across the picture – these look like a kelp species, commonly known as “sugar weed” or “sugar kelp”, what I grew up as a young marine biology student knowing as Laminaria saccharina, and what has been renamed by marine taxonomists (in 2006, I think) as Saccharina latissima. This has featured on our wild food menu at home – young plants, washed then air-dried, cut into approximately 2-3 cm squares and then deep-fried briefly in hot oil, will swell up to make a sweet, crispy, puffy snack. Slightly fishy and salty but actually quite nice!


Again, as in the last post, I am generally unable to comment on the trends in any of these species, a major problem with the monitoring undertaken of our marine life being that there isn’t systematic approach to tracking what is happening with the commoner marine species around our coasts. Again, though, I would refer you to the excellent information source on marine species and habitats that is the MARLIN (Marine Life Information Network) website, for ecological information on all of the species mentioned here, if you desire to know more (and who wouldn’t?).

So, apologies again for the lack of comparison with the time of publication of these books. I hope at least you enjoyed the picture!

Signs of the times: Summer #16

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

“They sprint eight feet and –

stop. Like that. They

sprint a yard (like that) and

stop.

They have no acceleration

and no brakes.

Top speed's their only one.

They're alive - put life

through a burning-glass, they're

its focus - but they share

the world of delicate clockwork.

In spasmodic

Indian file

they parallel the parallel ripples.

When they stop

they, suddenly, are

gravel.”

Norman McCaig “Ringed plover by a water’s edge”

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Summer Picture 16
¡Vamos a la plaja!

It is well past high summer, the school holidays are now finished all over Britain, so it seems appropriate that we too should visit the beach at some point in this Summer odyssey, while indeed it is still Summer (although here in Stirling it feels like we are perched precariously on the cusp between Summer and Autumn!). In fact, this is the first of several pictures devoted to the coast and seashore between now and the end of the Summer book. In this picture, a group of ringed plovers, adult and juveniles, has landed on the tide line, sitting among the kind of natural marine debris I spent my childhood beachcombing through – in fact, I can honestly say I frequently found specimens of all of the featured items here during my youthful strandline perambulations!

The text addresses the conceit of a painting crowded with these treasures of the sea by saying: “They are not often so close together as in this picture, so some child must have collected these and spread them on the seaweed to view all these treasures at one glance.” Sweet! At the top of the picture, a cuttlebone from a cuttlefish lies next to a dried common starfish (Latin name: Asterias rubens). Immediately below the ringed plovers, the two valves of a razorfish shell (there are several species - I have no clue as to which one this is meant to be), and the purple test (shell) of a common sea urchin (Echinus esculentus) lie next to a dead shore crab (Carcinus maenas). Below them, a mermaid’s purse (a dogfish’s egg case) lies next to the pink and golden shell (well, one half of the shell anyway) of a queen scallop (Aequipecten opercularis) (or “queenie”, if you are interested in eating the shellfish that your diving friends bring up to the surface!). This isn’t the species you are normally served in restaurants but is a smaller and no less edible and tasty scallop species. The picture is completed by the large, white, coiled shell of a common whelk (Buccinum undatum), the shell of another dead sea urchin species, the sea potato (Echinocardium cordatum) which lives in the sediment drawing water and organic matter down a burrow from the seabed surface. These animals or the remaining empty, fragile shells (or tests) are often washed up on the beach after storms. In the bottom left of the picture, the granular mass of little “blobs” is a cluster of common whelk eggs, or at least the cases of them.

The principal purpose of this series of posts is to examine and discuss the changes that have taken place in the examples of British wildlife and countryside shown in the pictures since they were published between 1959 and 1961. I would love to do so for the marine species (or their remains) shown here but it is extremely difficult to do in the same way as I have been able to do so far for, say mammals, birds, flowers and butterflies in earlier posts. While all of those groups (and others) have long-term monitoring processes that have allowed me to make some interesting and in some cases alarming trends in populations (and sometimes to discuss why they are occurring), this is much more problematic for marine species in general and, for what are probably regarded as very common marine species such as shore crabs, razor fish and sea urchins, it is not possible for me to source information to provide an overview of what is happening to their populations, range or distribution in the face of climate change, fishing, the cleaning up of pollution in our coastal waters and estuaries, and so on

Oh, it is possible to tell some stories from specific places. For example, in 1997, I published a study of crab populations in the Forth estuary, by Edinburgh in eastern Scotland, that used records of crabs from the field notebooks of the local marine biological survey vessel to show how the population of shore crabs had increased dramatically over a period of several years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, over the period that the water quality in the estuary improved drastically in response to pollution control measures placed on significant historical industrial discharges. As recovery was also seen (shown in scientific papers published by other people) in the beasties living in the mud of the extensive mudflats of the estuary over the same period, it is likely that the crabs were indeed responding to an improving environment. Which is great, but it is an example from a single place that had been subjected to some extreme impacts from industry and isn’t representative of what is happening everywhere.

We aren’t, however, completely devoid of excellent information sources on marine species and habitats – the fantastic MARLIN (Marine Life Information Network) website, for example, provides a wealth of ecological information on all of the above species, if you want to go looking for more.

The one species in the picture that I can say a bit more about in terms of how it is doing is the ringed plover (Charadrius hiaticula) - a small, and as the Norman McCaig poem at the top of the page implies, hyperactive wading bird of sandy and gravel shores and estuaries. As with many other plover species, when the parent birds perceive a threat to their nest or chicks, they pretend to have a broken wing, dragging one low on the ground and running away from the nest or chicks, to draw potential predators away. The British Trust for Ornithology reports that the breeding population of this species is not monitored annually, but a BTO survey in 1984 showed increases throughout the UK since the previous survey in 1973–74. The spread of the breeding birds inland between the two periods, especially in England, was “probably associated with the increase in number of gravel pits and reservoirs.” The 1984 survey showed that more than 25% of the UK population nested on the Western Isles, especially on the machair [the amazingly flower-rich coastal grasslands restricted globally to Western Scotland, the Hebrides and the west of Ireland], but breeding waders there have subsequently suffered greatly from predation by introduced hedgehogs – a problem that appears increasingly severe and which led to the recent highly contentious hedgehog capture programme on the Western isles, organised by Scottish Natural Heritage, our national nature conservation agency.

Surveys of ringed plovers in England and Wales revealed an increase of 12% in breeding birds using wet meadows between 1982 and 2002. The BTO's repeat national survey in 2007 found an overall decrease in the UK ringed plover population of about 37% since 1984, with the greatest decreases in inland areas. Ringed Plovers that choose beaches for nesting are especially vulnerable to disturbance, and human use of beach areas severely restricts the availability of this habitat to nesting plovers. Wintering numbers in the UK have been in decline since the late 1980s, but the BTO doesn't offer comment on why this might be.