READERS of this newspaper are very erudite people.
Last week I wrote about a wild-flower I had come across in Sardinia that I couldn’t identify. Within hours I had an email from a reader correctly naming the plant from my description.
It was Oxalis pes-caprae, a type of sorrel which has a number of English names, one of which is goat’s foot, which is a translation of the Latin specific name. I learnt from the internet it’s a native of South Africa, is widely naturalised in many countries with a Mediterranean-type climate and is regarded as a pest in some. It’s certainly a very attractive pest.
One of the depressing aspects of looking up wildlife subjects on the internet is that you’re often confronted with a list of websites dedicated to suggestions on how to destroy the species concerned. Purple loosestrife is one of our most beautiful native wild-flowers. But at some stage it got into North America and started choking wetlands and watercourses. So the internet is full of US sites advocating the best form of chemical warfare to use against it.
Back home the tough winter continues, and obviously has the potential to continue for a good bit longer. I’m doing my best to make things easier for the wildlife in my garden.
All the experts emphasise that in frosty weather it’s just as important to supply water for wild birds as it is to feed them. I’ve been diligent about this, melting the ice on my pond and on the hens’ drinking trough every morning. But during the heavy snow about a month ago I observed something very interesting.
I was watching a small flock of starlings that was queuing up to use one of my bird feeders when I noticed that the birds in the queue were picking up beaks full of snow, rolling it around in their mouths and swallowing it. I’ve often wondered whether birds could use snow as a drink when open water is scarce and this seems to prove they can, or at least starlings can.
The hard weather has forced some species to overcome their natural timidity. The robins in my garden are characteristically unafraid of humans but they can be very nervous of other birds, particularly flocks of noisy house sparrows. But cold and hunger has given them a type of Dutch courage and, puffed-up, twitching and aggressive, they take on the sparrows to get a few pecks at the food on offer. But one of the high points of the winter for me was the arrival of another species that is normally too timid to join the regulars at the feeders. Long-tailed tits are one of my favourite birds. A pair arrived and mingled with the coal tits, blue tits and great tits, pecking at the fat balls and the peanuts.
Their round, pink-flushed bodies with that ridiculously long tail on the end and their rapid, acrobatic movements entertained me for a few weeks. They’ve gone again now. But so far this winter I have seen no siskins or redpolls, though there were plenty of them last year.
I’m not worried about the redpolls because my neighbour (a country neighbour, he lives nearly 10 kilometres away) told me on the phone that he reckons he has every redpoll in the county on the feeders he fills with niger seed for goldfinches. But he hasn’t seen any siskins either, which is a bit worrying.
Despite all the efforts of the people who provide food and water for wild birds, there have been a lot of casualties this winter. It will need a good breeding season to bring populations back up to normal again.
* dick.warner@examiner.ie
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, January 31, 2011
