Tower and Town, December 2023

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Nature Notes

"These are a few of my favourite things"

Sometime in December, as the first ‘robin in the snow’ Christmas cards drop through the letter-box, I thumb through the diary and recollect the special creatures I have seen over the year and cherish in my mind.

The robin is not a bad one to start with. It has a song for every season, and with that red breast, restless manner and confiding behaviour it’s no surprise that it is the nation’s favourite bird.

Amongst our wintering birds is a rather special finch that lingers on till March -the brambling. I heard its distinctive, nasal ‘chüp’ calls in an area of beeches on a morning walk. After a few minutes it perched on a bare tree with a few similar-looking chaffinches, a male, with dark head, orange belly and shoulder stripe.

In March, searching for partridges on the approach to Windmill Hill all I could see on a bare field was a clod of earth. But then it came to life, a lovely brown hare with big ears and a lolloping gait.

Spring is the time for the endless singing of the skylarks and the arrival of our summer visitors. On April 14th a cock redstart appeared on a barbed-wire fence in a local meadow, en route no doubt for some distant welsh location. The name ‘redstart’ refers to its red tail, which shivers and trembles, especially when it’s trying to attract a mate.

One of my favourites amongst the many early flowers is the kingcup, which I usually find in damp river margins alongside clusters of cowslips.

I see that in May and June I went searching for butterflies in various locations: the list included marsh fritillaries, Duke of Burgundy, and best of all the gorgeous adonis blue, the bright blue wings brilliant alongside the duller common blue.

Spring turned into summer and more memories flood the brain: nesting swallows in the church porch, a hedgehog in a neighbour’s drive, nightjars ‘churring’ at dusk in a woodland clearing, and then a special moment, as a kingfisher darted over the water while I plied my rusty angling skills on the River Avon near Amesbury.

It brought back another memory from way back when I was a coarse fisherman, trying my luck with a ledger line on the River Thame in Oxfordshire. I was waiting for the line to twitch, and when it did and I looked up a kingfisher was perched on the tip of my rod looking keenly into the water. After that moment I gave up fishing and became a birder.

Robin Nelson