Stafford Borough Walking Festival

Last week Stafford Borough Council held a walking festival, Sunday 5/5/13 to Saturday 11/5/13.  If this was to encourage people to walk it was preaching to the converted in my case as I am a keen walker anyway, but I took it as an opportunity to add variety to my walks and discover new information and places.  There was a good deal of choice of walks.

Sunday

I didn't do a festival walk on Sunday as I was keen to go on a 9 mile walk in the Youlgreave area of Derbyshire with Stone Ramblers instead.  Very good it was too.

Monday

I visited Sugnall Hall for the Bluebells and Blossom walk on a very warm and sunny bank holiday!  This was of interest as I did not know about the place previously.  There was a certain lack of organisation with this event, discrepancies in the tour times, no map provided and very little available for lunch compared with the published menu.  That was somewhat of a missed opportunity for them I thought, on a bank holiday especially.  I would have had my main meal there if the roasted pepper panini or quiche had been available. As it was the pineapple and grapefruit green tea and slice of coffee cake was very nice but not a very balanced diet.  The map situation was rectified after the event as the owner emailed one to me.


The tour itself was however very good and interesting, the bluebells were coming out in the woods although had not reached their prime due to the cold weather this spring.  I was also encouraged to appreciate the beauty of a little yellow flower called celandine, even though it is marauding rampantly all over my own garden.   We passed the kitchen block of the old hall, although the rest no longer exists.  The original Jacobean building had been demolished and a Georgian one built in its place.  That in turn had been demolished to build, as it turned out, nothing, because the money had run out!  The walled kitchen garden was very interesting, we were shown the items being grown, which included a large variety of young apple and pear trees.  The walls of the garden are impressive, built of ~250,000 bricks and hundreds of years old but still standing and sturdy.  The tour was not far, maybe a mile, but the permissive paths and public footpaths allowed more exploration.

We were given pedometers at this event, but I am less than convinced of their usefulness.  The friend I was with managed to do ~9,000 steps, while I did only ~6,000, but we walked the same distance!  I had clipped mine to my pocket rather than at the waist as instructed but I don't think this explains the discrepancy.  I obtained another one in a goody bag later in the week but it was faulty and I've only just got around to fixing it.  So wearing both for comparison just round the house for a while, one reads 371 while the other reads 746!  The pedometer contains a lever and fine wire acting as a spring.  The motion of a step moves the lever down so it briefly makes electrical contact with the circuit board, recording a count displayed on the LCD, before being returned back to open circuit by the spring wire.  The pedometers look identical and the wires are equally set, but it seems one does not make as good contact as the other.

Tuesday

I went on the Mid-Staffs Ramblers Walk, which was a very leisurely 4 mile walk around Sandon. I am a member of the Ramblers Association but had only walked with the Stone group before this.  I had done this walk and variations of it before but it was enjoyable and Gayton brook is a lovely little stream to visit.  The walk also included stops to tell us information about the estate, including such facts as the folly taken from Trentham Hall.  Particularly interesting was finding out why the church is so far from the village on the A51.  Reinterpreting this in my own words I gather that historically the main village was near the church but the toff at the time didn't like the plebs in such close proximity so had it flattened.

Sandon is conveniently close to the Hollybush Inn at Salt, now they know how to do a good lunch!  So I met another friend there for lunch after the walk.


Wednesday

I had thought I couldn't refuse a walk with cake in the title, so tried to book the Culture and Cake walk by credit/debit card over the telephone, but was told I would have to put a cheque in the post.  In the 21st century, really?  I thought that was too silly so I didn't bother.  I also wimped out of volunteering at Trentham North Park which I regularly do on Wednesdays as it was raining heavily.  So I didn't walk at all on Wednesday, I opted to go swimming instead.

Thursday

Following a non-festival ~5 mile Stone Ramblers walk in Derbyshire, over Hollins hill and around Chrome hill (because it was too windy to go over the top), there was still time for the Stone Heritage Walk: Culture and Canals.  

This was a very good walk around Stone with a wealth of interesting history, well attended despite the weather; rain, sun and rainbow.  It was good to be shown where the old roads ran as well as the canal and railway.  There was some interesting architecture including 2.5 storey Georgian style buildings, with the short top floor apparently for the servants.  A member of the group joked that they had a small staff.  We also saw the old mill, the home of Richard 'Stoney' Smith who invented Hovis.  The structure adjoining the left of the building was an aqueduct supplying water to the mill.

Friday

I attended the Nature Walk at Ferndown.  Despite being in the South of Clayton, which is close to Trentham where I live, I had not been there before.  This event was not well attended, perhaps understandable given that it was during a working day and perhaps also because of the location at the extreme North of Stafford Borough.  It was nevertheless very interesting.  

There is a lot of local community involvement with the nature reserve and little anti-social behaviour.  The nature reserve includes a variety of wild flowers and a recently planted apple orchard.  I was particularly interested to see and learn about sedge.  Rather than having the male and female flowers mixed as in grasses, each sedge has a stem of yellow pollen laden male flowers and two stems of purplish female flowers.




Saturday

I was very keen indeed to attend the Dawn Chorus Walk at Stafford castle, as I am a member of the British Trust for Ornithology and do volunteer bird surveys but identifying bird song is my weak point and I am trying to improve on it.  There was a glitch at the start of this event because security were meant to open the gates at 4.30am but hadn't arrived by 4.45am when I got there.  The other criticism I would have was the group, at ~17, was rather too big.  But having smaller groups would mean the organisers having to be up early on more mornings or finding other comparable leaders, which could be difficult as the walk leader was incredibly experienced and good at identifying bird song.  He said he had started learning from childhood.  So I'm probably well past it trying to learn at the age of 54, but I will persevere.

As well as the main track up to Stafford castle, there was a winding woodland path that I don't recall being there before.  This was the path we took to best encounter the birds.  Birds we heard included blue tits, great tits, chiffchaffs, crows and woodpigeons that I am confident about and wrens, robins and chaffinches which I can sometimes identify but am sometimes unsure about.  The loveliest song we heard, in my opinion, was the blackcap but I do find it tricky to distinguish from a blackbird by song, the blackcap song is perhaps more flowing and slightly higher in pitch.  It was an enjoyable walk.
     

I congratulate Stafford Borough Council for a great week of walks.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

This weekend many of us around the UK have been taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.  Birds are a most abundant and accessible form of wildlife, interesting to watch and it doesn't take much by way of putting a bit of extra food out to entice them into our gardens.

My favourite garden bird is the lesser redpoll.  They first started to visit my garden last year in the early spring when I put nyjer seeds out, hoping to attract goldfinches.  I do sometimes get goldfinches but the redpolls are my favourite because they visit almost daily and often stay for quite a long time.  They disappeared for quite a few months over the summer but returned in the late autumn.  At present I have 4 who visit, 2 male and 2 female.

Another garden bird I like is the nuthatch, this seems to have spates of visiting frequently then disappearing for a long time.  Amusingly I have had a moorhen coming into my garden lately, on Friday there were two.  I have no pond although I live very close to a brook.  I also noticed a bird I did not recognise and found the RSPB bird identifier tool very useful, it turned out to be a male reed bunting.  Since then I've also seen a female.  I like seeing birds when I'm out walking too, herons are good to watch on the canals towards sunset, yellowhammers are very pretty and I once spotted a redstart.  One of my favourite birds is the kingfisher.  This may be because I can remember being out for a walk with my parents at a young age when we saw one and they taught me to appreciate what a rare and wonderful sight it is.  Kingfishers are so difficult to spot and are usually gone in a flash.

On Friday afternoon I experienced the most amazing sight in my garden.  Three lesser redpolls, the 2 females and one of the males, were feeding on the nyjer seeds, whilst at the same time there was a goldfinch on one side of the sunflower heart feeder and a male siskin on the other.  Siskins very rarely come into my garden.


I did my RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch on Saturday.  I decided to choose the same time of day I had seen the siskin and goldfinch in the hope they would turn up at that time again.  But you can guess who didn't turn up, the siskin didn't appear again, the goldfinch was absent and none of the redpolls visited at all during the chosen hour!  That is despite the redpolls being regulars and one of the females having popped in earlier in the day, as well as a nuthatch, but no moorhens.  Never mind, I can only hope they were all in someone else's garden giving them the pleasure of seeing them and perhaps recording them.

Here is my record compared with last year.

                Sunday        Saturday
                29/1/12       26/1/13
                10.20-11.20am 2.40-3.40pm

Common species
Blackbird       2             2
Blue tit        3             3
Carrion crow    1             0
Chaffinch       1             2
Coal tit        0             1
Dunnock         0             2
Great tit       1             3
House sparrow   8             0
Magpie          0             1
Robin           1             0
Song Thrush     0             1
Woodpigeon      4             3
Other
Reed bunting    0             1

Total:         21            19

The biggest pleasures arising from the birdwatch hour were seeing the reed bunting again and the song thrush.  I had spotted the song thrush earlier in the week but prior to that it has been a very long time since there has been one in my garden.  What was really nice about it was that it came right up close to the house and watched me back.  The coal tit was cute but whilst I had thought I have been getting a lot of coal tits recently, what I learned is that it's much more likely just one coal tit an awful lot of times.  It was in and out all hour, but just one of it.  I'm seeing fewer house sparrows this year, last year I had a regular flock of 8, this year I've only seen one male, one female, though they didn't visit during the hour.  And although the specific data don't show it, my wider experience suggests I'm getting more dunnocks and chaffinches recently than I used to.  The other species are much the same.

Bird surveys are enjoyable to do.  Back in March 2012 I wrote a blog about the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).  Since then I have joined the BTO and been assigned a square for the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) to be done in the spring.  I'm also hoping I might be able to take part in the Waterways Breeding Bird Survey but haven't been assigned yet.  I'm not actually that skilled at spotting birds so I'm trying to learn more of the songs and calls and I'll be doing some training, but had to time this for after the BBS this year.  Over time I'm sure I can improve.  I have had one go at the Winter Thrushes Survey, taking a route based loosely on my BBS square.  Unfortunately it wasn't too successful or peaceful, even though I'd chosen a week day.  I spotted at least 22 people, 13 dogs, a helicopter, some sort of microlight, a chainsaw and a wood chipping machine.  And of the required bird species?  A mere 3 blackbirds!  I may try again but I've been waiting in vain to try to avoid the other problem, wading precariously through ankle deep slippery mud.  All good fun!

Breeding Birds, Garden Birds and Wetland Birds

On Friday 24th March 2012 I attended the Stone group of Staffordshire Wildlife Trust to hear a very interesting talk by Gerald Gittens of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).  I found out about this talk via twitter, as I follow @bitofstone.  The event attracted an audience of about 40.

Gerald told us about the work of the BTO which focuses on scientific surveys and complements the work of other organisations such as the RSPB and the JNCC.  Such work, carried out largely by volunteers, is of interest not only to the bird watching public but also to wildlife and conservation groups and government.  Gerald described three core types of survey the BTO carries out; the breeding bird survey, the garden bird watch and the wetland bird survey.

The breeding bird survey involves many randomly defined 1km by 1km squares each allocated to a volunteer.  The volunteer will perform bird counts along each 200m of a walk along two defined 1km stretches within their square.  These counts are carried out in the early morning during the spring.  The numbers of different species seen or heard within certain distances from the route or flying overhead are recorded.

The garden bird watch is carried out by other volunteers who, every week all year round, note the maximum number of each species observed in their gardens.

The wetland bird survey involves volunteers counting species at many specific locations clustered around the coast, estuaries and other wetland areas.

All the data are statistically analysed and reports are produced of the results.  Gerald showed us examples of the tables and graphs produced, which as a scientist kept me very happy.  Plus maps, I’m very fond of maps too.

The graphs showed how garden birds are observed in larger numbers during the winter months and smaller numbers during the summer, so graphs over many years showed spikes but an overall trend on top of that.  Some examples given included buzzards, the numbers of which have risen tremendously over the last 15 years, cuckoos which have markedly decreased, sparrows which are also on the decline and goldfinches which are on the rise.  A drop in goldcrest numbers was also reported.  I can only assume numbers started very high as I encounter large numbers of them in many locations when I’m out walking, difficult to see but distinctive by their high pitched call.  As well as trends, the prevalence of various bird species was also shown.  For example in garden bird watching, blackbirds are seen in almost all gardens but some species such as yellowhammers are very rare.  This matches my experience, I have never seen a yellowhammer in my garden.  I know where to find them though in the countryside to the West of Stone and Trentham, along with very many other species as well.

The BTO are able to accurately report on bird numbers and locations because of having a large number of well distributed areas from which to extrapolate.  Comparisons can also be made with similar surveys in other parts of the world.  For example in other parts of Europe the cuckoo is not decreasing, in some areas it is increasing.  It seems that it is tending not to stop off in Britain on its migratory route.  Finding reasons for the observed trends is rather more difficult than measuring them and subject to a bit more guesswork.  The increase in buzzards for example could be attributed to less use of pesticides allowing greater availability of their food chain, but a decrease in kestrels is not easy to explain.  Garden bird numbers can be affected by disease actually spread due to visits to bird tables.  This serves as a reminder to us all to keep our bird feeders clean to avoid an adverse effect on the very wildlife we are trying to encourage and enjoy watching.

Gerald told us that the wetland bird surveys were most popular amongst volunteers and the breeding bird surveys were the hardest to find volunteers for.  That surprised me a little.  Garden birds I think have a greater cuteness factor than water birds.  But perhaps I think this way because of living in Staffordshire.  I expect if I lived on the coast I would be much more interested in the water birds around me.  The survey that sounded to me the most interesting to do is the breeding bird survey, because it allows you to get to know an area near you very well.  Also, it combines looking for birds with a walk, albeit a very short one.

I would like to thank all concerned for putting on a very good event.

I am no expert on birds, I’m just an ordinary person with a good deal of interest in most things around me.  I have the usual garden birds; blackbirds, great tits, blue tits, robins, sparrows, a woodpigeon or two, the odd magpie and recently the occasional chaffinch.  But my interest has been enhanced since I got a seed feeder and more recently a niger seed feeder, pretty much by ‘accident’ as I dislike shopping and happened across them rather than set out to buy them.  I hoped the niger feeder, purchased at the Wolseley centre, might encourage goldfinches which are pretty in colours and song, but I was prepared for maybe having to wait many months to see them.  As it was redpolls appeared within a week, I have never seen these so close up before.  The male doesn’t visit as often as the two females, which appear daily.  I thought it doesn’t matter if I never get goldfinches because the redpolls are so nice anyway.  But then two goldfinches appeared on Friday morning.  One flapped around nervously and didn’t stay very long but the other stayed a good while.  I have not seen them since but they know where my feeder is now so I think they will return again sometime.  That’s new redpolls and goldfinches into my garden within two weeks of buying the niger feeder.  I’m very pleased.

Relevant on twitter: @Nicky_Davis_ @StaffsWildlife @_BTO @Natures_Voice @bitofstone