by Jenny Seale | Nov 20, 2024 | Spotted
SPOTTED!
Wildlife in (and around) Hailsham
by Tim Fox
At the end of April, nesting was well and truly underway. Five starling nests, with young begging for food from within, dot the buildings on my short walk into town from near Station Road. Hopefully, there’ll be just enough rain to keep the ground soft and insects buzzing (around well-watered plants) to enable parents to forage enough food for the chicks.
We have over the years put up nest boxes for house sparrow and swift, with sparrows readily accepting our hospitality and even taking over the swift box. Blue tits twice built a nest in one of the boxes, but never laid eggs. First time around nest desertion remains a mystery but, second time around, bumblebees took over the nest box early on, so the blue tits buzzed off.
Seemingly not deterred by bees in the neighbourhood, the blue tits (a small mainly yellow and blue bird species with white face a black “beard”) sought a home elsewhere and, despite the choice of several custom-made wooden boxes, they chose somewhere “illuminating”. I’ve often read of both great and blue tits nesting in places you wouldn’t want them – for example traffic bollards for great tits and ash trays for blue tits – but our locals, for at least the second year running, have chosen to nest five metres off the ground in a hole at the top of a lamppost on a public footpath. They have been spending a few days pulling moss out of the lawn, then hopping onto a nearby tree branch, before checking the coast is clear and flying up to disappear into the nest entrance to continue forming a small cup-shaped nest into which the hen will lay up to 10 eggs. In more rural areas, great spotted woodpeckers are known to drill new or enlarge existing holes into nest boxes and cavities in order to extract the eggs (or tasty chicks!) for their own and off-springs’ consumption; there is no way a woodpecker is drilling into the metal casing of the lamp, so top marks to the blue tits for choosing a safe location, and I’m looking forwards to successful chick-fledging sometime towards the end of May, beginning of June.
Photo credits: Tim Fox
Tim can be found most Saturday mornings gracing the airwaves with Pat Bradley on 95.9 Hailsham FM, discussing local happenings between 8 and 10am.
by Jenny Seale | Nov 20, 2024 | Spotted
SPOTTED!
Wildlife in (and around) Hailsham
by Tim Fox
I was astounded recently to be able to walk less than ten minutes from my town centre residence and hear a nightingale singing. The sun had just disappeared under the horizon as I approached, and many birds were taking part in the dusk chorus – the soundscape filled with song of blackbird, song thrush, robin, starling and even house sparrows, all of them saying (shouting!) goodnight to their neighbours. Every now and again though, the unmistakeable tune of the nightingale – an at-times fast-paced succession of high- and low-pitched notes – could be heard. As it got darker and the other birds quietened down, the melodious night-songster kept going, seemingly oblivious to the new housing estate that has only recently sprung up less than 100 metres away, and the revellers from a nearby party passing by his perch. A bird that many people would call a “little brown job”, nightingale (luscinia megarhynchos) is slightly larger than a house sparrow, and has a creamy/buff chest and underside, with brown/orange feathers and a red/brown rump tail. It is one of many birds that migrates to breed in northern Europe in our summer, then spending our winter in Africa. They arrive here mid to late April, with males singing to advertise their territory into late May. The UK breeding population has declined severely (91% decline from 1967 to 2007), with population explosion of deer (that like eating dense undergrowth, favoured by nesting nightingale) partly to blame. Some of the favoured nightingale sites also happen to be classified for planning as brownfield, which makes them prone to being lost to development. I treasure every time I hear a nightingale sing, because I don’t know how long it will be before they become extinct as a breeding bird in the UK.
Photo credit: Tim Fox
Tim can be found most Saturday mornings gracing the airwaves with Pat Bradley on 95.9 Hailsham FM, discussing local happenings between 8 and 10am.
by Jenny Seale | Nov 20, 2024 | Spotted
SPOTTED!
Wildlife in (And around) Hailsham
by Tim Fox
As I write, it’s 20 days into #30DaysWild. I have to admit not being able to keep up with daily postings on Twitter, but I’ve still found plenty of #RandomActsOfWildness to keep me busy. Of those to-date, “Following a bee” was made easy thanks to Hailsham Parish Church (St Mary’s). As well as allowing part of the graveyard to go wild, in which there are many species of wildflower attracting bucket loads of insects, the main attraction on the sunny Sunday June afternoon that I visited it was a bridal wreath. Before you start thinking about the leftovers from a ceremony the previous day, bridal wreath is a synonym for a variety of shrub, spiraea arguta, with intensely white blooms the full height of the plant. Planted next to the current main entrance to the church, it was in full bloom and, whilst walking by, it was difficult to avoid the sound made by hundreds of pollinating insects, each one eagerly seeking out nectar from what must have been hundreds of thousands of delicate white five-petalled flowers. Honeybees, bumblebees, hoverflies and flies abounded and, if I stayed a while longer, I’m sure that I would have been able to add butterflies and moths to the visitor list. We have a Hailsham Heritage Trail that records buildings and areas important to Hailsham’s history (St Mary’s Church is number 3 on the trail); if we had a trail to record natural history (the Hailsham Nature Trail?), this spiraea would be on it. For more information about 30 Days Wild, visit www.wildlifetrusts.org
Photo credits: Tim Fox
Tim can be found most Saturday mornings gracing the airwaves with Pat Bradley on 95.9 Hailsham FM, discussing local happenings between 8 and 10am.
by Jenny Seale | Nov 20, 2024 | Article, Spotted
SPOTTED!
Wildlife in (and around) Hailsham
by Tim Fox
Some months back, I wrote about a buddleja in our garden that was not only self-service nutrition for bees and butterflies via nectar, but also to aphids via sap. This year, eagle-eyed Ann spotted something else helping itself to a cutting of the plant. The first clue that some-thing was feasting were the holes in the leaves. Suspecting slugs or snails (there have been quite a few after the wet month of June) the culprit was, much to my surprise, a caterpillar. Brightly coloured white, yellow and black and with a funky face mask, four caterpillars of cucullia verbasci (better known as the mullein moth) were merrily munching away, oblivious to what fate lay ahead of them. One option was to change their dimensions by making them much wider and significantly less tall, but this option wasn’t favoured by 100% of the household, so plan B was enacted: transfer them to the larger buddleja where their feasting would cause less damage. Over the course of the next two weeks, I played spot the caterpillars, which were usually located by their barrel-shaped poop. Eventually, having grown to well over an inch in length, the caterpillars disappeared one-by-one. I’d like to think they went to find a safe place to pupate, but I’m not ruling out one or two of them having been turned into snacks for the second brood of hungry blackbird chicks in our clematis. The adult blackbirds have been quite adept at catching moths as well, so those caterpillars that do successfully pupate into the moth best find a very safe place to hide up during the day.
Big Butterfly count is now well underway and runs until August 8th. Mullein moth is not one of the three species of moth to watch out for but, along with seventeen species of butterfly, keep an eye open for moths species Silver Y (mottled brown moth with small letter “y” on its wings), Six-Spot Burnet (black with red spots on its wings) and the drop-dead gorgeous Jersey Tiger (black wings with white stripes and red/orange hindwings). More details at butterfly-conservation.org
Photo credits: Tim Fox
Tim can be found most Saturday mornings gracing the airwaves with Pat Bradley on 95.9 Hailsham FM, discussing local happenings between 8 and 10am.
by Jenny Seale | Mar 19, 2024 | Sport, WCIJ
If you want to continue playing bowls in the winter, you can at Hailsham Short Mat Bowls Club. Situated in the Hailsham Community Civic Hall on Monday evenings (7pm-9pm) and Friday afternoons (2pm-4pm), you can go along and give it a try with your first three sessions free. If you are interested contact their Membership Secretary, Gary Wright, on 07950 962353.
