There is something about Moths

It has been a while since I wrote my last post because I have had the wildlife bug more so than ever.  I have been busy out and about doing things on my training placement, going to Identification workshops, doing breeding bird surveys and exploring nature reserves on a weekend with some great wildlife sightings.  

 

At home House Sparrows have nested in the nest box that we put on the side of our house, a Great Spotted Woodpecker has been feeding with a juvenile on our log feeders and there has been a lot of juvenile Great Tits not really sure what they need to do after fledging from their nest. My mom also tells me that a male bullfinch has returned to the garden and I’ve also seen a Nuthatch to add to the excitement.  A hedgehog was also in our garden earlier in the week (I didn’t get to see it) which is really good news, my mom created a tiny hole in the fence to create a wildlife corridor (Can you tell who I’ve caught the wildlife bug off?) it might have used that to get into our garden.  

Elsewhere I saw a fox hunting rabbits at Sutton Park which was amazing, Swifts are frantically flying outside the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and Black Country office and there were lots of butterflies around Moseley Bog& Joys Wood nature reserve on a volunteer day in the week, including a Comma, Small Tortoiseshell and several Ringlets, there were also clusters of Peacock caterpillars on some stinging nettles.

Yellow Shell moth at Park Hall

On a recent Breeding Bird Survey at RSPB Sandwell valley we saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker and its juvenile chick which we think might have been the same Woodpecker that was nesting on the opposite side of the Tame River by the reserve. We also spotted a kingfisher but the most exciting thing that I have seen recently is an Elephant Hawkmoth.  I have always wanted to see an Elephant Hawkmoth and it didn’t fail to impress me seriously I was so shocked to see it I nearly choked on the toast I was eating. IT WAS AMAZING!. So if this photographic evidence can’t provide proof that there is wildlife in Birmingham and the Black Country then I don’t know what will. After seeing the Elephant Hawkmoth I have had a greater appreciation for moths because I’ve come to realise that moths are not just brown small things they are really great and colour to rival butterflies (plus they have cool names).

 

Elephant Hawkmoth at RSPB Sandwell Valley

 

A birding botanist?

The most important and perhaps shocking reason why I haven’t had time to write my post is because over the past few weeks I have felt the need to sit in a darkened room with a cup of tea trying to figure out how the unthinkable has happened because I Natalie Norton, Natalie the ‘birder’ has started to take an interest in plants *gasp*.  I have started dividing my time between looking up at the sky for birds to looking at the ground at plants. Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with plants, because let’s face it they are a crucial part of an ecosystem and they are rather dainty and we are spoilt for choice with the variety, but for me that is the problem there are just too many plants that look similar and I just find identifying plants a bit difficult. Yes they stay still when you are trying to identify them but I just feel like you need to learn a completely new language to get to grips with botany to the point where my brain just gives up. I am trying to persevere though I have slowly got to grips with some woodland flora and I even have my favourites, such as Wood Anemone, Yellow Pimpernel and my ultimate favourite Wood Sorrel, because the leaves remind me of clubs on a playing card so I can easily remember them. At the moment I am trying to conquer grassland species, I think my favourite is Lesser Stitchwort and my favourite grass is Timothy grass (yes that is right I just uttered the words I have a favourite grass). I guess the key to botany  is to take small steps at a time and the more I preserve it will eventually stick in my head and get easier and to not make it a chore because looking at anything in the natural world should never be a chore.  Like I said in my original post you don’t really need to know the names of things to appreciate them. A few weeks ago I went for a walk around Cuckoos Nook & the Dingle nature reserve in Walsall. It was fantastic to see a carpet of Ramsons (Wild garlic) although it did make me think of garlic bread which made me peckish and at the time Bluebells were also present.

I know that developing my knowledge of plants is important not only because I am looking to gain a career in wildlife conservation.  But it will be very useful when doing gardening for my grandparents to know which plants are weeds (although I was once told that weeds are just plants in the wrong place) and which plants my nan would not like to be pulled up when I’m gardening. I have had too many pale faced, sweaty, anxiety filled moments when my nan wonders why a cherished plant hasn’t emerged and flowered and asks whether it is still in the garden*gulps*. So am I ready to give up my binoculars for a hand lens? I’m not sure, I prefer a bit of variety so I think for now I will have to consider being a birding botanist. 



 

In Spring life is a bed of bluebells

 

I’m back for another instalment of my ramblings, since my last post I have been thinking of something to say I think I have settled upon the thought that there is both space for people and wildlife.

Bluebells in the woodland at Red House Park, Great Barr



Last week as part of my Training placement with The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and Black Country I visited Quinton allotments which is one of the Nature Improvement Area (NIA) projects that the B&BC Wildlife Trust has been involved with implementing. In a nutshell the NIA focuses on using a landscape- scale approach to nature conservation that aims to create, enhance and restore existing habitats while improving the linkage between such habitats via wildlife corridors. I haven’t explained it that well but please check out the B&BC Wildlife Trust Website to find out more.  Anyway, it was my visit to Quinton allotments that inspired this post because not only was I surprised by the size of the allotment and the valuable space it is for wildlife in an urban area. I was really overwhelmed by the community spirit that the Allotment holders had and their enthusiasm for making the allotments a space for wildlife – a place that can be used by both people and wildlife. During my visit I saw butterflies such as Peacock, Speckled Wood and several male Orange tips, as well as hearing singing/ calling Goldfinches, Greenfinches, Chaffinches and a Dunnock. I really enjoyed seeing how the allotment holders had utilised recycled materials such as using glass bottles for borders and my favourite was a disused toilet as a plant pot.

It seems that occasionally people find wildlife a bit of an inconvenience, for instance at the moment with the dawn chorus. I know some people don’t appreciate being woken up at stupid o clock in the morning but I personally find it useful it’s an alarm clock that you can’t switch off but it’s much better than the annoying ringtone that is my morning alarm. Whenever I hear a Wren singing I always think of the time when I was stuck in my bedroom revising from a forest of lecture notes about animal behaviour wishing that I was out in the field observing it for myself.

By seeing people at the allotments appreciating and co-existing with wildlife (apparently the Woodpigeons eat well from sown seed).  It made me think of how we can all do something to make space for wildlife for example in my garden my mom has put up many bird feeders, even a window feeder does the trick. We also made an ‘insect hotel’ it didn’t cost anything we used odd materials we already had and my mom did a good job at asking people if we could have stuff like plastic pipes and pallets out of their skips. I also tried to convince my dad to let me convert the garden shed into a bird hide needless to say I was unsuccessful.

I also monitor birds visiting my garden by doing The BTOs Garden Birdwatch. I was nervously waiting for birds to appear on Saturday morning my garden was empty, the feeders were bare.  Armed with my Binoculars and sipping my cup of tea I patiently waited for birds to arrive on the feeders. At one point the only thing I had to watch was a cat staring up at the feeders gulp!. In an hour I had x2 Greenfinches, 1 Woodpigeon, x2 Chaffinches, 1 Great Tit, x2 Dunnocks, 1 House Sparrow and 3 Robins. I wasn’t surprised by the small amount of birds that had visited within the hour compared to usual considering the time of year.  I have seen many signs of birds collecting nesting material probably the best example is the magpie that has been taking off with the bristles from our front door mat.

Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner?

 

 

Hopefully spiders will live here and not surprise me in my house

 

These ideas might not be ground-breaking and you have probably heard about them before but it’s only because they work in that they are beneficial to both people and wildlife.  In the case of the window feeder birds are getting fed and I am getting wildlife coming to me in the comfort of my own home, lazy wildlife watching what is wrong with that?. But I do feel that the value of wildlife and the natural environment is often under estimated.(Rant Alert)  These days it seems like everything has to have a price tag and sometimes it seems like wildlife is considered to cost too much, surely the benefit that our green-spaces and wildlife provide to our well-beings is priceless and worth appreciating?.  





It's a small little world when you are a ladybird

Before I attempt to start writing a blog I would like to say that it probably won’t be grammatically correct, my sentences will probably be too long (who needs to breath whilst reading anyway?), my photographs won’t be great (you might need to use a little imagination to work out what is in the photo) and I must confess that I am still trying to work out all this blogging technology stuff, I thought Twerking was something related to Twitter!.

I would be grateful if just one person spends a bit of their time reading my ramblings because (Cliché alert) all that matters to me is my message getting across. I want to get rid of the view that ‘There is no wildlife in Birmingham and the Black Country’ because Birmingham and the Black Country (B&BC) are truly wonderful places for seeing wildlife and I can prove it.


This weekend I went for a walk around RSPB Sandwell Valley reserve, it is not far from where I live and is part of the wider Sandwell Valley. I love Sandwell Valley. It is like my second home I am always surprised by the wildlife I see there. In the past I have seen a Great Spotted Woodpecker feeding chicks in its nest in a hole in a tree, a Skylark singing above grassland, juvenile Grey Herons in a Heronry, a Great Northern diver on Swan Pool and this weekend I managed to see a ladybird laying its eggs. I forgot to mention that the M5 goes straight through the middle of the Valley and you can see the BT tower in Birmingham from the RSPB reserve yet wildlife is plentiful here despite the urban landscape.  I can’t go a couple of weeks without a visit to Sandwell Valley and RSPB Sandwell Valley reserve yet five years ago I didn’t even realise that the RSPB reserve existed.

These are the ladybird eggs - they were better viewed close up

I am quite ashamed to admit that I have not always had an interest in birds and other wildlife. People who know me may be surprised by this because now I spend my weekend’s bird watching, I record the birds that visit my garden, volunteer with RSPB Sandwell Valley and recently became a trainee with the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country.

I wish that I could say that my interest in wildlife stemmed from my childhood if reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and loving listening to Mallard ducks pecking on the side of my grandparent’s narrow boat counts then it probably did but I was the child that always ran away screaming when I came across a spider (I have sort of got better with age).

At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter when you start getting into wildlife and believe me it does become an obsession. I know that it is not just me that is crazy about the wildlife in B&BC because there are a lot of committed wildlife enthusiasts and ‘birders’ around the midlands some that helped with my knowledge of birds and started my addiction.

 I can’t just go for a quick walk because when you realise the wildlife that is on your doorstep, in your Local Nature reserve or park you start to see everything and wonder what is was that you just saw out of the corner of your eye.  I sometimes find myself having to reassure my friend that I am listening to what they are saying but I am sure I have just heard a Buzzard calling. Oh and then there are the sleepless nights because I have seen something that I can’t identify and google can’t tell me what that brownish finch or was it sparrow shaped bird was or I can’t remember the name of the rare beetle that was on the TV (I remembered it was a Tansy Beetle Phew!).

I just want to share my love for wildlife and hope that I can help people find their place where they can get close to nature because being obsessed with wildlife is so enriching. There is always something to look forward to like the return of swallows and swifts in the Spring/Summer and the emergence of butterflies and dragonflies to flocks of red wing in Autumn/Winter. Plus you don’t need to be an expert and be able to put a common and/or Latin name to the wildlife you see it can just remain a white- yellowish plant, you see once you enter the natural world you will never want to come back.