Around one hundred people took advantage of the Open Day guided tours on May14th and the RSPB members who arranged the day were amazed to find not only sunshine but not a drop of rain fell! All the usual spring flowers were showing well, including some late bluebells and ramsons. The highlight of the day in floral terms was a pristine Bird's Nest Orchid that has come up in the usual place on the top ride, after missing out in 1999. The Early Purple orchids have continued to expand their colonies in the wood so that the largest collection now comprises around 60 plants. Interesting migrant birds proved much more elusive with an absence of Turtle Dove this year and a spotted Flycatcher that must have moved on from the day before. However there were at least nine Blackcaps calling along with three or four each of Willow and Garden Warblers.
The Open Day also saw the opening of the ride through the plantation: Access is from the kissing gate in the car park. The path meanders to the very top of the wood and includes a seating area for watching the birds that prefer a coniferous environment, such as Goldcrests and Coal Tits. In order to meet health and safety regulations, the path has been raked clear of brush as far as possible, cleared of stumps and warning signs erected, so please take care. Even a woodland path is governed by rules these days!
Has anyone noticed that Cuckoos are in short supply this year? Once again the wildlife is proving unpredictable, no doubt due to a variety of causes, but there are a few unwelcome signs this year of a decline in species. The wood appears to have only six breeding pairs of thrush, down from nine over the last few years, Two Turtle Doves appeared but seem to have moved on and there are no local records in the Newtown area at present. It is not all doom and gloom because research into the huge loss of Linnets has found that they will breed successfully on areas of oil-seed rape. Unlike Yellowhammers, who have adapted to birdtables and other foods to supplement their loss of arable and grassland seeds due to intensive farming, Linnets have just declined, nationally by more than 40%, locally by more than that. Hopefully, farmers will find rape a useful crop and if more is grown then the population should recover somewhat.
Once again, we are having a cold and wet spell in May that threatens to destroy many eggs and chicks. During our May survey of Dormouse boxes we again found them largely filled with birds, mostly varieties of tits feeding newly hatched chicks. The lack of insects in the cold and wet may well prove enough to stave these broods in boxes and for those birds unfortunate enough to have a 'natural nest outside' they may also freeze to death from the wet. For those species that breed much earlier, such as Starlings and Robins, their chicks are now fully fledged and able to fend for themselves if necessary. They are also lucky that the wet brings up a diet of earthworms. For the first time ever, we have found a number of boxes with Wrens nesting. Their nests resemble those made by a long tailed tit in a box but rather than a complete ball of woven material, it has a small, circular clear area under the lid that seems to serve no purpose. Studying wildlife is a never-ending learning process.
When Eric Stone told me that a Mr. Tim Palmer had been selected as the Conservative candidate for the Romsey parliamentary constituency, we both wondered whether it was the "Woodyates" Tim Palmer. The same evening, local TV news confirmed that our County councillor, and resident of West Woodyates, had indeed secured the candidacy for Romsey.
After his election to the District Council, I thought that his political career was going backwards. But I soon discovered that it was his enthusiasm to tackle local issues and to question specific District Council policy that took him in this direction. I also remember his support for Alan Humphries, when Alan decided to sever his connections with the Liberal Democrats, following a dispute over a tree in Sixpenny Handley.
Somehow it seemed very strange to me that the man I used to pester, at Parish Council meetings, about reflective Rushmore Park road signs, unsalted icy roads and potholes in Cobley Lane, should suddenly be thrust upon the national stage. But, having been successful twice at the local level, it was probably a natural progression to try for the biggest council of all, the House of Commons. Fate, and the fickle electorate of Romsey, soon put that ambition on hold.
At the beginning of the campaign, Tim was described as a Hampshire farmer, and there is some suggestion that his failure to win the seat at Romsey may be attributed to the fact that he was, and still is, a Dorset farmer. The loss of Romsey was without doubt a setback for the Conservatives, especially on a night of local council election success. But, set against a local candidate, and the anomalies thrown up by tactical voting, it is clear that he was given an enormous task to hold on to the seat. The comment by the Prime Minister, at Question Time, that it was "an irresponsible campaign", was specifically designed to rub salt into Conservative wounds, but it did a great injustice to the man who has served this particular community of ours well.
Between now and the next General Election, Tim should have all the time he needs to woo the people of Romsey. And one day, who knows, there may yet be a Member of Parliament from Woodyates.
Replace the stars with team names. (Answer next issue)
The sun shone ******** the day we set sail for the ****** aboard an ancient wooden ship which had a **** riddled with holes and a ***** made up of Scots, Welshmen and others of the ****** race. They were a rowdy bunch and did in fact ******* furniture after a heavy session. The exception was the cabin boy whose job it was to ***** the boilers. He won our ****** with his honest endeavour to conquer his lack of learning by practising his ******* alone as if sent to ********. On the whole the sea *** was good for the family and did my ********** as she had not had a holiday ****** too long. It certainly did her ******* lot of good. At last we docked at ******* which had just been built and at once headed for the fabled residence of Hawaii's monarch. It was inhabited by the ***** ** *** ***** and was looked after by forest ******* dressed in ******* green, who greeted us with a friendly *****. We saw the hills where the ****** still roamed freely and where the natives **** their dead. For tea each night we had ****** cakes, ****** buns and some ****** which was best left alone.
Friday 5th May 2000 --It is 5:10 a.m. and I am sitting at the kitchen table writing. Why, you may ask, so early in the morning? It is not really light yet but this does not stop the birds. I awoke some twenty minutes ago and thought whatever has woken me? I surfaced and realised I was listening to THE DAWN CHORUS, a great cacophony of sound, individually they may be melodious but all together they certainly are not. Many writers have attempted to describe this over the centuries; all I can say is, to me it is like a large symphony orchestra warming up. The sounds have now been somewhat overtaken by the noise of the kettle boiling for my first of many cups of tea, to bring me to terms with starting a new day. Again a subject raised by many authors of the past, so I will refrain. Although I do take the advice of one great author, Laurence Sterne, writer of Tristram Shandy, in which Tristram himself is portrayed as an author and reflects that there are many ways of writing, the best as far as he is concerned is to prepare the first line thoroughly and pray that the rest will follow. Actually this is not bad advice, as many a letter writer will vouch. If you have something to say it will out, it is the getting started that matters. That is, I suppose, why I am sitting in the kitchen at 5:30a.m.
I've started, unfortunately for you, you may think but I will continue anyway.
My apologies, I have just restarted, the kettle boiled and I made tea. At the same time I let out Tess, our Border Terrier, to see her puppies, which are being gradually weaned. At the same time letting the chickens out, to start what I hope will be another busy day for them.
Although it is hardly 5:40a.m. the chorus's crescendo is over for the day. Never mind there will be another tomorrow, I wonder if I will hear that one?
I would make certain I did if I could be sure of one participant that even I can recognise, the cuckoo! Several people have assured me they have heard one, this includes Ron Wood, the vicar, so they are about. In fact they were heard in the Purbecks almost four weeks ago, followed by hearings in Bere Regis, Wimborne and progressively north to Wimborne St. Giles but as yet not at Woodcutts. They are late if the old country rhyme is true:-
Sorry again, another delay, I have just been outside to read the maximum and minimum thermometer. (This style of writing i.e. gappy, is the result of reading Tristram Shandy, my advice to anybody who has not read it, don't try.) The temperature appears quite low because of a strong E.N.E. wind blowing; the reading is in fact 5°C or in old money 41°F, chilly enough for May, especially bearing in mind global warming. I sometimes think we must be missing out; but if you take into account the three laws of conservation, namely:-
1. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
2. Matter's constituent parts will always remain the same even if distribution varies.
3. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
If it is 7°C hotter in parts of India than expected, it must be correspondingly colder elsewhere, or if there is a severe drought in Ethiopia then more rain falls in the U.K. Certainly it did in the month of April, when approximately three times the anticipated amount fell. That was a lot by anyones standards.
Last time I wrote almost two months ago, it seemed that everything would be early this year, but because of keen Easterly winds, high rainfall and mediocre temperatures nature appeared to stand still until the last week of April, when growth exploded from everywhere. Suddenly the horse chestnut, sycamore, Sorbus spp. and even the oaks were in full leaf but not the ash, so we are to have a dry summer at least, that is if there is any truth in the old country saying:
So this summer when cricket, tennis, bowls, picnics and barbecues are rained off, grin and bear it, we really are having a dry summer, the oak trees said so.
You have got to have faith, which reminds me of a time some forty years ago, when I was just one of a gang of a dozen or so workers "opening and cutting" in the hop gardens at Selborne in Hampshire. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, until the sky became black with thunder clouds, suddenly the heavens opened and we all ran for cover. Luckily there was a large barn at the edge of the hop garden, where the last year's calves were housed and at that moment Sim the stockman was giving them their afternoon feed. He looked up to see twelve very wet men in their shirtsleeves, rushing in. With a big grin on his face he said, "No need to run chaps, I've heard the forecast, it's going to be a dry afternoon".
So forty years ago men were complaining about the weather, I suppose four hundred years ago men were complaining about the weather, or even four thousand years ago and I suppose they always will; particularly farmers, gardeners and holiday makers. The last month (April 2000) was one of the wettest in the 300 hundred years that records have been kept, along with the corresponding months in 1999,1818 and 1782,1 remember 1999 but not the other two.
What will all this water mean? Well, hopefully no water restrictions this summer, if the respective companies have been able to save some of it; but more importantly, what will it do to plant growth? Plants generally flower and fruit naturally at their best when slightly under stress. Rubbish! you may say, but this is the case. The reason for flowering is as a precursor for seeding, a plant will not put all its energies into producing seed if it thinks it will live forever it will simply produce more and more branches, leaves and roots with only the occasional flower, resulting in few fruits and subsequent seeds.
This of course is borne out by the need to prune and deadhead. If growth conditions are good, i.e. warm temperatures, ample water and sufficient nutrients are available, potatoes will produce good crops of tubers but will be late flowering, this you will say is marvellous but would you say the same about your dahlias. No, you must control the plants in the garden, deleaf, dead head, summer prune, let in the light and air, put those plants under stress without nature doing it for you with disease, overcrowding and competition.
Away from the garden, I have found one of the loveliest flowers I have seen in the wild. Out walking, about a month ago, poking my nose into hedgerows as is my usual wont, I saw a group of small pale green leaves I did not recognise, growing under a hazel bush. At first there appeared to be only leaves but on closer inspection, I discovered flower stems with tiny blooms, but as they were also pale green in colour and in the shade of the hedge they weren't immediately noticeable. On getting onto my hands and knees, the inflorescences were clearly visible; each flower stem terminated in five, delicate flower heads four mounted in a square, as are the four faces of a church clock in a square tower. The fifth mounted above the other four and pointing vertically upward. Each flower about 6mm across consisting of four petals, the same light green as the long stalked, 2-3 lobed leaves, with bright, yellow anthers protruding. This delightful little flower I identified as Moschatel, Townhall Clock or the Five Faced Bishop, (ADOXA MOSCHATELLINA), the only genus and species of the family, a native of this country but found as far afield as the Himalayas and N. America. Although apparently widespread but local in the U.K., I had never seen it before, nor had Win Kirby who has lived all her life some 400m from where it was found. This find, in part makes up for some absentees, the campion family. Where are the Ragged Robbins and Red Campions? The only common red wildflower at present is Herb Robert, all others sadly missing. Perhaps the result of susceptibility to agricultural herbicides. On a happier note, Cowslips appear to be making a comeback in the area; this is confirmed by Win Kirby's observations. On this cheerful note we must say Thank You Lord for a wonderful world, a world You have left in our hands, may we treat it better in the future than we have in the past.