Happy birthday to super-popular actress Alison Steadman - longtime champion of birds and wildlife

                                          

Alison Steadman - important to enthuse children

IT'S many happy returns of the day to actress and birdwatcher Alison Steadman.

Although the comedy actress grew up in Liverpool, she  has lived in Highgate, North London,  for several years.

In her leisure time, she loves walking in the capital's green spaces.

 “My love of birds and nature started when I was young." she says. "We had a small garden which was my dad's pride and joy.

"He grew rhubarb, and I remember looking under the leaves and finding caterpillars - I didn’t know the names of them but I loved them.

"I don’t really see caterpillars in the garden anymore and I find that quite worrying."

After finding fame with the 1970s TV plays Nuts in May and Abigail’s Party, Alison began presenting nature programmes in the 1980s. 

“I did a show for children," she says. "One week it was about ants, and there was a boy of 11 who talked about how they lived and how they were better organised than us! 

"I loved doing that programme. My agent didn’t think I’d want it but I ended up having an absolute ball."

Subsequently, her  enthusiasm for wildlife saw  her travel around the Shetlands for an ITV documentary. 

“We had a great guide called Brydon Thomason who showed us  Puffins - they are the most wonderful creatures, I love the fact that they mate for life! 

"It was fascinating to learn about how their bright beaks are used for courtship.”

One of 24 on RSPB's list of bird-loving "celebrities and enthusiasts, Alison is also an ambassador for the London Wildlife Trust.

She insists: "It's really important to encourage people to look in the garden and turn over a stone or a leaf and see what’s there. 

"With the internet, you can look stuff up immediately so you know what you’ve found.

"And, if you can get children interested in nature, it stays with them for the rest of their lives."

She continues: "When my son was five, he brought a friend home for tea and there was a huge bumblebee at the window. 

"His friend wanted to kill it with a newspaper. I said ‘no’ and he looked at me like I was mad. 

"It was what he had been taught to do by his dad - children need to be taught that every creature is important and is not just something to be stamped on."

Alison is keen to ensure as much of London remains natural as possible.

"These big housing developments can be really unfriendly to nature and we need to do more to keep our green spaces,"  she maintains.

It seems like harmless fun but do paddleboarders pose a threat to Kingfishers and other wildlife?

 

The report in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph

ARE paddleboarders threatening the welfare of Kingfishers and the other wildlife that dwells  on  Britain's rivers ?

The issue is raised in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph newspaper which casts a spotlight on what is claimed to have been happening on a stretch of the River Stour in Suffolk.

In Helen Brown's report, a livestock farmer alleges that Kingfishers are being "chased away" by the surge  in paddleboard traffic.

He also maintains that numbers of otters, water voles and grass snakes are being "decimated".

The journalist goes on to describe an incident where another resident witnessed "a gang of youths on paddleboards hurling bottles at a terrified moorhen with her chicks in tow".

Other problems are said to include a "rising tide of litter", drones being flown from boards and loud music from speakers attached to the front of some boards. 

Worse is if motors are fitted to the back of boards, effectively turning them into jet skis.

There is also said to be an issue in sensitive coastal areas where seals are agitated by the proximity of passing boarders and kayakers. 

                                            

Wildlife under threat say residents

In peril from boarders - Kingfishers don't like disturbance

What am I offered for this pair of 8x32 Leitz binoculars? Hammer expected to fall at between £80 and £120

                       

A vintage  pair of 8x32 Leitz binoculars is up for grabs at a sale of scientific and musical instruments, plus cameras, at Tennants auction house in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, on Wednesday of next week. The pre-sale estimate is that the binoculars, which come with a leather case, will fetch between £80 and £120. Leitz, founded by Ernest Leitz, is a forerunner of  what is now a more familiar brand, Leica (= LEItzCAmeras).

Soldier-ornithologist George Montagu would have been thrilled at breeding success of raptor named in his honour

                                                             

Male Montagu's Harrier - this bird photographed at an unknown location by Hari K Patibanda (image: Wikimedia Commons)

NO one would have greater appreciated the current hoopla about Britain's rarest breeding raptor, the Montagu's Harrier, than George Montagu, the man who first confirmed  it as a species separate from the similar-looking but heavier Hen Harrier. 

Coincidentally, Montagu  was born in 1753 at  Lackham in Wiltshire - the county where this year's successful breeding male was hatched at a protected site in 2016. 

A soldier who rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, Montagu dedicated all his free time to the study of nature, especially birds.

The bird whose plumage he differentiated from the Hen Harrier was shot on August 10, 1803, and found to have the remains of a Skylark in its stomach.

He named it the Ash-coloured Harrier, and it was only later  that it was named in his honour.

Three years earlier, Montagu had discovered Britain's first known Cirl Buntings feeding in winter among a flock of Yellowhammers and Chaffinches. The following spring, he found them breeding near Kingsbridge in Devon.

According to his biographers, Barbara and Richard Mearns, Montagu was also involved with the first British records of the Cattle Egret, Little Gull Roseate Tern  and Gull-billed Tern. 

He also established that  the so-called "Greenwich Sandpiper" was the Ruff in winter plumage and the "Ash-coloured Sandpiper" was the same bird as the Knot.

Montagu predicted the demise of the Great Bustard as a breeding species in Britain when he wrote: "Young ones are frequently taken by shepherds' dogs before they are capable of flight, and their eggs are eagerly sought after for the purpose of hatching under hens . . .and the consequence will be a total extinction in a few years"

Montagu died, aged 62 after a tragic mishap.

While  alterations were being carried out at Knowle House in Kingsbridge, he stepped on a rusty nail protruding from an old piece of timber.

A few days later, on June 20, 1815, he died of tetanus.

                                        

The only known portrait of the pioneering ornithologist, George Montagu

Bygone birding: Dartford Warblers were formerly to be found on the commons of South London

 

Below is an extract from John Cotton's note on the distribution of the Dartford Warbler in his 1835 volume, The Resident Song Birds of Great Britain:

This is one of the least known among the British warblers. 

It is rather larger than the common Wren but much longer by reason of its tail which is one half its length nearly. 

It is called the Dartford Warbler from having been first discovered in England near that place.

Mr. Sweet says it is  "one of the rarest of the British species of this tribe", but mentioned by Montagu as not uncommon about Kingsbridge, Devon, and in the neighbourhood of Truro in Cornwall.

It is also occasionally met with on Bexley Heath, near Dartford, Kent; also on Blackheath and on Wandsworth and Wimbledon Commons where it is said to breed in the furze-bushes.

It feeds on grasshoppers, moths, butterflies, caterpillars, ants and various other insects.

The habits of this bird are very little known.

Dr. Latham informs us several were shot, in the winter of 1783, on a common near Wandsworth in Surrey from which circumstance that author very justly observes that if it is found here only as a winter migrant

In the month of September, 1796 (says Montagu) we observed many of these birds about Falmouth in Cornwall, frequenting the furzy hills

He recalled: "We killed several from that time to  December 24 when a sudden fall of snow covered the ground for some time, driving them from that area."

It has been found, however, to breed in this country, Montagu having discovered a nest on July 17  on a large furze common. 

It was placed among the dead branches of the thickest furze, about two feet from the ground, slightly fastened between the main stems, not in the fork.

The nest is composed of dry vegetable stalks, particularly goose-grass, mixed with the tender dead branches of furze, not sufficiently hardened to be come prickly.

These are put together in a very loose manner and intermixed very sparingly with wool. 

This thin flimsy structure much resembles the nest of the Whitethroat. 

The eggs are also somewhat similar to those of the Whitethroat, but rather less, weighing only twenty-two grammes.

Like the eggs of that species, they possess a slight tinge of green and are fully speckled all over with olivaceous brown and cinerous on a greenish whiteground.   

                                     

 Wimbledon Common - former home to Dartford Warblers (photo: Doyle of London/ Wikimedia)

            

Female Dartford Warbler (photo: Vcebollada/ Wikimedia)

Early identification guide - in three volumes - expected to fetch up to £800 at auction next month

                                  

This study  of an Avocet - in slightly exaggerated pose - is one of the illustrations included in a very early identification guide: George Graves's three-volume British Ornithology: Being The History with a Coloured Representation of Every Known Species of British Birds. At that time, the tally  was a modest 144.  The three books are expected to fetch between £500 and £800 when they go under the hammer as a single Lot  at the Dominic Winter auction at Cirencester in Gloucestershire on September 2.

What did for Britain’s first Long-tailed Shrike - was it a hungry cat or was it the cold and exhaustion?

                                         

Long-tailed Shrike - this bird photographed in Sumatra, Indonesia (image: JJ Harrison via Wikimedia)

THIS summer’s  sightings of Long-tailed Shrike - firstly at  Crail in Fife, then at  Eastleach Martin, near Gloucestershire - have sparked recollections of the first British record of the species.

This was the bird that showed briefly on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides in late-October and early-November 2000.

It was  first spotted as "a bird with a long tail" on October 27 by a police sergeant, Jon Brain, who alerted a more experienced birder, Andrew Stevenson, who caught up with it as it was perched on a fence outside the local Ben Mhor stores in Benbecula.

His tentative identification was confirmed by experts from the RSPB and the Scottish Wildlife Trust who put out the word to the outside world.

Cue:  a speedy  influx of 200+ twitchers, some arriving on by private flight (at least seven flights were chartered) and some by fishing boat or by the regular Caledonian  MacBrayne ferry from Uig to Loch Addy.

Once it had been discovered, there was disappointment that the bird mostly skulked out of view within a willow bush, providing few clear views.

But this slight sense of deflation was nothing compared to the mission-unaccomplished desolation of one group who had to turn back to Uig after their boat encountered engine trouble en route through the Little Minch.

Alas, beyond the Saturday of that weekend the Kazakhstan  visitant was no longer seen prompting speculation in the Aberdeen Press and Journal newspaper that what it dubbed "the long distance flier" had become an exotic dinner for a lucky island cat.

The more realistic appraisal from the man who found the bird, Sgt Brain, was that the bird was no more likely to have fallen victim to a feline than any other bird

His reckoning was that, on the basis of its "wet and bedraggled" appearance it had succumbed to the cold.

He was quoted in the November 9 edition of the Stornoway Gazette and West Coast Advertiser as saying it looked a "bit dischuffed".

But back to the recent arrivals. 

Given the high  August temperatures in much of Britain, cold weather is unlikely to have proved a challenge for them.

The Fife bird only stayed briefly, but its Gloucestershire bird has lingered. 

It is possible that the "two" are, in fact, the same bird, but the general view seems to be that they are separate.

                                 

Was vagrant  bird 'exotic dinner' for lucky cat? How the Aberdeen Press and Journal reported the shrike's visit