ALICE HOLT FOREST NATURE NEWS: ITEMS FROM THE ARCHIVES
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Here are some of the articles published over the last couple of years on the Alice Holt Home Page under the Nature News section
Identifying Winter Trees (December 08)
Small Forest Birds in Winter (January 09)
IDENTIFYING WINTER TREES
BELOW: There were more reds, oranges and russets this year due to the large amounts of sugars the trees made following a wet Summer: from left to right: the WILD CHERRY or GEAN (Prunus avium) the JAPANESE MAPLE (Acer palmatum) and a young BEECH (Fagus syvestric) which has hung onto its leaves .
BELOW: ASH (Fraxinus excelsor) is best distinguished by the hard, sooty black buds. The bark is smooth and greeny-grey when young but becomes evenly fissured, a single skin split into a fine lattice and stretched over the trunk .2ND ROW: the silhoutte of a large Alice Holt Ash tree by John Williams (c) Forestry Commission This is how they grow when they have space. In amongst the oak trees they may be much taller and straighter with branches .The characteristic brown bunches hanging on the bare twigs which are the seeds or "Ash Keys"
BELOW: The OAK (Our Common Oak in lowland areas such as Alice Holt is the PEDUNCULATE ,COMMON or ENGLISH OAK: Quercus robur) has thinner twigs than the ash. They are quiteknobbly but more flexible and whippy with neat brown buds. The bark is never as smooth as the ash, soon becoming deeply fissured.Seen from a distance its patterned in a more random way, without the overall "lattice"effect of a large ashe tree. The silhouette reveals the typical way the branches are full of twists , turns and right angles, but when seen as a whole they spread out horizontally to form a flattish canopy
BELOW: The BEECH (Fagus sylvaticus) has a rind like bark, reminiscent of the hide of an animal. Grey, but often bearing a lot of green algae on the shady side, the smooth young trunks eventually become more gnarled and sculptural as the trunk ages and sheds branches. The young trees and sometimes the lower branches of the full gron specimens retain the dead leaves in winter, and the twigs are tipped with distictively pointed, bullet shaped buds .
2ND ROW: The HORNBEAM (Carpinus betulus) is not one of Britain's commoner trees, nor a particularly easy one to identify. It looks very like Beech but the stems become somewhat knobbly and gnarled or twisted from an early aage, with more fissuring of the bark. The dead leaves , like Beech are retained in Winter, but are browner and more crinkly with a slightly toothed edge, less smooth, glossy and orangey than Beech. If you look under a Hornbeam you may find the small winged seeds ,quite different from the bristly little "beechmast" cases.
BELOW: The SILVER BIRCH (Betula pendula) and the closely related DOWNY BIRCH (Betula pubescens) stand out because of the bark. When very young it's a shiny blackish red with characteristic linear raised lenticels or corky ridges. Soon the bark whitens and begins to peel off in leathery, papery strips (an adaptation for shedding lichens and other external growths) Finally the bark becomes quite rough and fissures making a beautiful black and white pattern. 2ND ROW: The branches bear a lot of thin bendy twigs. often pendulous and the trees may sprout birdsnest-like twiggy growths called "witches brooms"
BELOW: The WILD CHERRY (Prunus avium) has bark with some similarities to Birch. It too has the shiny , slightly leathery peeling bark with raised rows of corky growth or lenticels. But the bark is uniformly dark and the twigs are much chunkier than the whispy growth of Birch. They carry fat clusters of buds on short fruiting spurs: these will produce the beautiful blossom in spring before the leaves follow.
BELOW: The CRABAPPLE (Malus sylvestris) is a nondescrpt tree, often a mass of twigs and sometimes rather spiny. They may play host to Mistletoe, although I confess I've not seen Mistletoe in any Crabs in Alice Holt. Close up the twigs fall into two types: the thin, spindly non-fruiting growths which tend to form twiggy masses and often die back in winter. Then there are the thicker shoots bearing fruiting spurs, with their greyish, downy buds which will produce blossom next year. The apples themselves are perfect little fruit, often a lovely yellow or greenish but of course very hard and sour. They often stay on the branches well into winter and remain on the ground until a combination of "softening up" of the fruit and the coldness of the weather causes birds and mammals to finish them off.
BELOW: The humble and inconspicuous native FIELD MAPLE (Acer campestre) comes into its own in Autumn as its leaves become a blazing mass of bright yellow in the hedgerows around Alice Holt Forest. Once it's dropped its leaves, it's best identified by the pale coloured but often very gnarled bark as seen in this exceptional old specimen (from the Isle of Wight) and the tendency for the twigs to develop corky ridges on them. The remains of the little pairs of winged seeds give it away too and reveal it to be quite different from the HAWTHORN (Crataegus monogyna) to which it bears a superficial resemblance. The pictures on the 2ND ROW show the key differences whichare actually more visible in Winter: the Hawthorn's spnes and its red berries.The bottom right picture is BLACKTHORN (Prunus spinosa) which lives up to its name, being both dark in colour and extremely spiny.
BELOW: HAZEL (Corylus avellana) is easily identified because it's already looking forward to Spring, with the immature males catkins showing. Occasionally you'll see a tree at this time of year with the catkins already opening but generally they're still tightly closed ROWAN (Sorbus acuparia) has a silvery grey bark which often attracts a lot of lichens. The distinctive feature is the thick twigs with large purple downy buds seen on the right. The wonderful bird in the picture is a WAXWING (Bombycilla garrulus) which visits the UK in variable numbers in Winter, depending on how the Rowan berry crop has fared in Europe.
BELOW: SYCAMORE (Acer pseudo-platanus) has dark ,smooth bark which becomes a bit flaky in older treesand thick straight twigs with fat, rounded buds. The red buds on "whippy" twigs which tend to sprout in masses from the trunk base of the grey-barked trunk are the marks of the COMMON LIME (Tilia x europaea) The tree below right has had all the lower "sucker" twigs grazed off by deer and cattle leaving a horizontal "browse line" above which the animals cant reach the twiggy growth.
"Come, come thou bleak December wind,
And blow the dry leaves from the tree!"
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834,
Fragment 3
It was a spectacular Autumn in Alice Holt Forest, with reds and oranges coming to the fore.
The reason? An exceptionally good growing Summer for the trees due to the long periods when sunshine and rain alternated almost daily. So the trees produced a lot of sugars in their sap. Then, come the shortening days and unseasonably early frosts of Autumn, there was a rush to produce anthocyanins, the red-coloured chemicals which assist the trees in keeping their plumbing open while all this valuable food is recovered from the leaves before they fall. So while the carotene-rich larches, sycamores and wild maples added splashes of bright yellows, the predominant colour pallette this year was of rich browns, bright oranges and gorgeous deep reds.
How soon the colour display was over! The gales and deluges of November brought most of the leaves down in the course of a week or so. Now, among the deciduous trees it's only the young oaks and beeches that carry much. Further down you'll see why they tend to hang on grimly to their dead leaves all Winter.
Many people find it hard to distingish one tree from another even in summer. This is especially so in Alice Holt which holds many exotic, non-native species.
Anyone who wants to identify a Cockspur Thorn from a Mediterranean Medlar should buy a good tree identification guide such as Trees in Britain by Roger Phillips (Pan Books Ltd).
But the main common native deciduous trees are pretty easy to tell apart once you know what to look for. For some of us a tree is a tree is a tree. But if you like to look at things a bit more closely and understand your surroundings as you stroll through the Forest, here's my attemt to distinguish "the trees from the wood".
Firstly, why do the leaves of some trees fall, but not others?
Leaves fall because of dryness. Hang on! Dryness? Surely we've just weeks of heavy rain? The fact is the leaves of most broadleaved trees form a vast surface area in order to capture the maximum sunlight to make sugars for maintenance and growth. This huge surface area is also subject to an enormous level of evaporation through the leaves' pores (A process properly called transpiration) In summer thats actually a benefit in our temperate, moist climate. It draws fluids continuously upwards through the tree's trunk and branches from the roots like a pump, bringing the water and dissolved soil nutrients essential for growth.
But in Winter, the tree's internal processes are very much slowed down and the leaves lose more water in the drying cold winds than they can replenish from the roots. Plus they're making very little contribution to the tree in terms of photosynthesising food: whilst they consume a lot of precious energy just in maintenance and may suffere physical frost damage due to the freezing of water in the cells causing them to burst and the leaf to rot. So the tree is better off without them and grows a layer of corky cells called the "Abscicion layer" which cuts off the supply of sap to the leaves once the tree has recovered all the goodness it can and this layer seals and protects the leaf scar during the winter, preventing fungi and bacteria entering.
The wonderful interrelationships which evolution throws up give deciduous trees other advantages: shedding all your leaves helps keep pests and diseases down (Hence many tropical rainforest trees also shed their leaves, but they don't all do it at the same time). And a bed of fallen leaves constantly enriches the soil with humus from the decaying leaf mould. So the trees are able to access readily available nutrients in their fine masses of little surface roots, instead of relying soley on the big and inefficient deep roots to bring up goodness from the subsoil which is a much harder thing to do. Clever things, trees! Or rather one should say "Well adapted things".
But some trees don't shed their leaves. Are they inherently less "clever" or "well adapted"? No they just have a different strategy for success. Most conifers have needle leaves. These minimise the surface area compared to flat, broad leaves and do not suffer the drying effects of wind so badly. Plus their tough. waxy cuticle and natural anti-freezes in the sap (hence the lovely piney scent) make them much more resistant to frost. Even broad-leaved evergreens like the Holly or Evergreen Oak are have leaves well protected by a glossy coating plus often strong, aromatic or bitter sap and a snow-shedding, smooth shape. Evergreens still shed their leaves, but they do only when the new leaves are in place (often in summer). That way, when spring arrives evergreens are ready to "hit the ground running" while the deciduous trees are madly having to grow tender new leaves which are at the mercy of unseasonable frosts or hordes of munching caterpillars.
Leaf fall and the colour changes which precede it are set according to an internal clock. The clock may be triggered by factors such as temperature or (more usually) decreasing day length. But keeping a British deciduous tree warm all winter in a greenhouse or by growing it in the tropics would not prevent it from shedding its leaves.
Of winter's lifeless world each
tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer's secret
Deep down within its heart.
Charles G. Stater - An American Author so obscure that not even Google could turn ap any biographical titbits about him
The Ash is one of the last trees to come into leaf and one of the first to shed its leaves in Autumn. It's an odd trait for a tree which likes a temperate climate, good soil and plenty of light.Last month I wrote that it was one of the early trrees that dominated our prehistoric forests before Oak and so on took over. Not so! I've checked my facts and found it existed mainly as an isolated and uncommon species in the Boreal woodlands that grew up following the last retreat of the ice sheets, but did not become really common until Neolithic man began to clear the forests atound 7,000 years ago and fast-growing ash sprang up in the disturbed ground and clearings.
It now dominates many woodlands on clacareous (limey) soils such as along the "Hampshire Hangers" overlooking Alice Holt. Within the Holt Forest itself it is not the dominant species, but one which thrives in among the more widespread oaks due to the deep, damp soil and frequent felling over the centuries. Many of Alice Holt's ashes are very tall and straight , growing upwards fast to reach the light at the top of the oak canopy.
With its leaves gone, it's easiest to tell be the hard little buds, sooty black and angular on the greeny-grey, smooth skinned twigs. The young trees, both seedlings and poles shooting up from coppiced stumps are similarly smotth skinned. As the tree matures its bark becomes evenly fissured in a regular pattern and the twigs of the more mature plants are knobbly ,often growing upwards at the end of pendulous branches. Many Ashes carry bunches of dry ,rattling "Ash keys" : these are the seeds (which germinate very freely on the forest floor) Not all bear keys as trees tend to be male or female, but remarkably they may change sex from one year to the next.
Ash timber is pale and regular with clearly marked rings and an even grain , often dyed and used as "black ash" veneer for modern furniture. It tends to split as it shrinks making it not much use for large planks but the remarkable springiness imparted by the interwoven grain makes it useful for applications where a high impact strength is needed such as baseball bats, tool handles , tent pegs and snooker cues. A proper Irish hurley (Hurling stick) is always made from Ash.
Oak , which is Alice Holt's dominant deciduous tree is pretty easy to tell in winter, with its big, spreading crown of crooked branches and its thick, deeply fissured bark. The lower branches and younger trees often hang onto their dead leaves all winter making identification easier. As soon as spring is here, they'll finally drop the leaves. This ensures their leaves fall directly onto the roots and start breaking down to a nutrient rich compost, just when the growing tree needs it most.
The buds are small and nut brown in colour and the twigs distinctively knobbly, growing from young branches which have a rather metallic silvery sheen, prior to becoming deeply fissured like the trunk
Another tree which has smooth bark on the youn branches, becoming deeply fissured as it grows is the Sweet Chestnut. It's best identified by the distict spiral effect of the fissures on the trunk, which twist round as the tree expands and grows. Plus the large spear-point shaped leaves tend to persist on the ground beneath the tree, being full of preservative tannin, together with the spiny cases of the edible chestnusts.
Beech in Britain is primarily a tree of dry, chalky and sandy soils. It grows throughout the forest both "wild" and in little planted blocks. It's especially common on the drier, stony soils of the ridge tops, such as in the Glenbervie Inclosure, alonside the A325 Farnham to Bordon road. It has a very smooth, grey bark rather like an animal's hide, often greenish with algae on the cooler , north-facing side of the trunk. The twigs are thin and whippy compared with ash or oak and can be distinguished by the long, pointed, bullet-shaped terminal buds. A young beech tree may be very smooth and straight but they become progressively more gnarled and shapely as the shady crown spreads out horizontally supported by a broad trunk full of holes and crevices where branches have been shed or fungal infections have opened up the rotten heartwood.
As with the Oak, young beeches retain the dead leaves, hence it's popularity as a hedging plant. The most likely confusion of beech is with Hornbeam. Hornbeam is much less common but is found here and there in Alice Holt. It looks very similar in both bark and leaf but the leaves (also often retained) are more ridged and slightly toothed, unlike the smooth leaves of beech and it often has multiple trunks springing up from the base, full of little knotty twists and spirals, unline the large and stately trunk of beeches. Hornbeam is infact more closely related to Hazel. It has the same dense, tough and very heavy white wood as hazel and is used to make small, hard-wearing components such as piano keys. Beech wood is similar but less dense, with a smoother, more even grain which splits very cleanly. It cuts so cleanly in different directions that it is still heavily used in the furniture industry, both for the classic, plain wooden kitchen chairs and tables and for the strong internal components of beds, armchairs and sofas.
A beechwood veneer is often found on bedroom, office or kitchen furniture because of its even, light colour and freedom from knots.
Ash, Beech and Hornbeam are all marvellous firewood although the latter two must be well dried.
Birch is perhaps our most distinctive winter tree. The bark is tough and leathery on the younger wood, sometimes dark ,but generally white (Hence the name "Silver" birch). As the tree matures the bark will incresingly split and peel back in leathery strips, before eventually becoming this and fissures, creating a lovely pattern of black and white.
The twigs are thin and finely branched, often haging downwards like stringy hair from the branches. They are soft, whippy and flexible , often tied into bunches to make besom brooms. They rapidly become brittel when dead. That's because the sap of Birch (a very fast growing tree adapted to springing up wherever land is cleared of other trees) is very sugary and rots much more quickly than other woods. So birchwood is useless for many purposes: outside it rots immediately and inside it lacks strength. However it's beautifully white when freshly cut and makes a nice furniture veneer, much favoured by the Scandinavians and familiar to us in the "Ikea look". The buds on the twigs are like smaller ,dark versions of beech, being pointy and bullet shaped. Winter reveals the "birds' nests" and "witches' brooms" which are twiggy growths in the baranches of Birch.
The Wild Cherry or Gean is quite a common tree in Alice Holt, growing fast among the young oak plantations before generally dying quite yound and rotting away quite fast. In that sense it's like Birch: and the bark is quite similar, tending to grow in leather bands that split and peel off . Cherry bark is leatherier and less papery than birch band generally uniformly blackish-brown: the older trees lacking the bold, fissured black-and-white look of birch. The twigs are much thicker, more knobbly and less finely branched than the pendulous twigs of Birch.
Another tree which is not so obvious in summer, but stands out in winter is the wild Crab Apple. It's a rather grotty tree, often covered in bumps from which spring masses of twigs and sometimes quite thorny. It's best identified by the little yellow apples which remain on the tree or lie under it, being gradually eaten by the fieldfares and other hungry creatures as the winter gets colder.
The Field Maple is not a widely known tree, although it's very common, generally in hedgerows but also as a modest, full sized tree beneath the oaks. In summer it looks rather like a Hawthorn which is why it's often not noticed. But in winter the trunk is much more gnarled and "tree-like" with a light coloured, evenly fissured bark pattern quite unlike the dark, reddish black of a mature hawthorn. The thornless twigs ten to be whippy and erect and lack the Hawthorn's habit of drooping.Their bark may become corky and swollen into ridges after a few years. Also they carry little winged pairs of seeds, like a sycamore, not the dark red berries of Hawthorn. The Hawthorn's wood is heavy and moist, often yellow or reddish inside, whereas the Field Maple has a lovely dense, pale wood with a complex hard grain beloved of woodcarvers and the makers of fine furniture and marquetry.
The Blackthorn or Sloe takes its name from the very black bark finely covered in little bumps and the viscious thorns which cover its twigs. It plays host to a lot of algae and bacteria, often having a rather slimy covering to the bark, which explains why Blackthorn scratches so easily become inflamed and septic.
The easiest shrub to identify now is the Hazel, simply because it's bearing new catkins already. These male "flowers" are short, stubby and green now but soon some will start to open up into golden dangling "lambs' tails" spreading wind-bourne pollen onto the miniscule red stars which are the female flowers, from which next year's hazelnuts will arise.
The greyish-brown bark of the Rowan is smooth and shiny when wet, with dark raised lenticels scattered with age, across it. The branches are typically upward-pointing, often rising almost vertically from the trunk in young trees . The twigs are quite stout and end in purplish buds, which are often covered in grey hairs. It's easy to tell in Summer from its white flowers and later on from its blazing masses of orange berries, but in Winter its an easy one to overlook. It's often called the Mountain Ash. It is ineed found in mountains, being very tolerant of extreme cold but it's not an Ash at all, being actually related to roses and apples.It can grow 50ft tall, but most of Alice Holt's rowans are more modest trees.
The Sycamore is an import, naturalised in Britain with a tendency to run riot in our woodlands, creating dingy, over-shaded areas rather unattractive to wildlife. It's shed its bright yellow leaves and winged seeds and now presents us with smooth, blackish brown bark on both its trunk and on the thick, vertically growing pole branches it readily sends out if cut down.
Common Lime (Tilia x vulgaris also called T. x europaea) is a naturally occurring hybrid between the native Small-leaved Lime (T.cordata) and its relative the Large-leaved Lime (T.platyphyllos). It's generally a planted tree in Alice Holt, growing into large ,stately specimens along some of the rides . In Winter it's easily identified by the masses of suckering whippy twigs with fat little red buds on the end which it sends up from the base of the twisted grey trunk.
SMALL FOREST BIRDS IN WINTER
(January 2009)
BELOW: The TIT FAMILY (Paridae) are perhaps the commonest group of birds in Alice Holt: The BLUE TIT (Parus caeruleus) is small and brightly coloured. The GREAT TIT (P. major) is the biggest, most noisy and aggressive and the most boldly marked. The COAL TIT (P. ater) is like a small, chubby and less brightly marked Great Tit ,with a white spot on ithe back of its head.
2nd ROW: The MARSH TIT (P. palustris) in this picture has a noticable sheen on its black cap, which distinguishes it from the otherwise almost identical WILLOW TIT (P. montanus) If you see one at your bird table, it's about 95% chance it's a Marsh Tit, not the scarcer and shyer Willow. The LONG-TAILED TIT (Aegithalos caudatus) is literally two thirds tail. Without those long tail feathers it would win the title of Britain's smallest bird, whicg it concedes to the tiny GOLDCREST (Regulus regulus) which is not a Tit, but a Warbler and rarely tops 9.5cm in length.
The NUTHATCH (Sitta Europaea) looks like a little fat woodpecker, going down the tree trunk seemingly upside down. It's more closely related to the Tits ,with who mit often associates in Winter.
If we were to believe certain armchair experts such as SIR TERRY WOGAN (Punditus middlebrowus: seen here in "those" trousers); the MAGPIE (Pica pica) and the SPARROWHAWK (Accipiter nisus) are largely to blame for our declinging songbird populations. BELOW: More informed opinions lay much of the blame on CATS (Felis domestica) and especially INDUSTRIAL FARMERS (Agricola nastichemicus) who are far worse culprits than wild predators.
The common Finches of Alice Holt Forest are all a little duller now in their Winter plumage but there are some rarer Winter visitors too:
BELOW: Male CHAFFINCH (Fringilla coelebs) and the greenish FEMALE CHAFFINCH.
2nd ROW: MALE GRRENFINCH (Carduelis chloris) FEMALE GREENFINCH and FEMALE SISKIN
BELOW: REDPOLL (Carduelis flammea) and the MALE LINNET (Carduelis cannabina)
2nd ROW: The remarkable CROSSBILL (Loxia curvirastra) The little grey brown HEDGE SPARROW or DUNNOCK (Prunella modularis) is not a Finch, but a relative of the Thrushes, and is starting to perform display little love dances of wing-whirring in front of his chosen mate.
"It was one of the Small Ones"
Doubtless, the
beginner who has no friend learned in Natural History to counsel
him, but is dependent wholly upon the books for guidance and his own untrained
observation for facts, will experience certain discouragements.
It will seem to him that if he reads up on any one bird and then sets out to find it, that particular variety will be the one which by no chance will he be able to meet with on his immediate excursions ; while other kinds, unknown to him, will swarm about him.
And, if he reverses the method, and singles out a specimen from those he does find, noting its markings, song and habits, with the intention of subsequently identifying it in the written descriptions, it will similarly appear to him that either such peculiarities as he has observed appertain equally to several varieties, or, worse still, if the books are to be trusted, they belong to none at all.
Hence, whichever way he turns the result is the same many birds seen but none identified.
Introduction to Our Common Birds and How To Know Them by John B Grant, New York 1893
As bird books go my new Collins Bird Guide , purchased from the RSPB's shop at Minsmere in Suffolk was a great buy. For years the old Collins Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe was always considered the standard birdwatcher's bible. I hated it, mainly for the simple reason that the text was in a completely different part of the book from the pictures ,and some of these were black and white.
I also struggle with photo guides. It may be counter-intuitive, but a well painted picture is a far better identification guide and far more "realistic" than a photo, distilling as it does all aspects of the bird's appearance and attitude, rather than offering a snapshot of one way a bird may look when it's in a certain position, with a certain plumage, in a certain type of daylight etc.
So ever since the early 1970's ,when my Grandpa gave me a copy for Christmas, I've relied on the Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe with its brilliantly simple text and maps and wonderful illustrations by Arthur Singer, for years the World's greatest illustrator of birds. The original copy fell apart long ago, but I bought another and carefully transcribed the marginal scribbles I'd made over the preceeding couple of decades. That's now finally come to grief after many well-travelled years' service..
While I think the Hamlyn still has the edge for quick recognition & field usability, the new format Collins Bird Guide is well laid out and very comprehensive both in the species it covers and the information given about each bird. Like so many good nature books it was originally produced in Swedish by Lars Svensson (a collaborator on the old Hamlyn Guide) and the Late Peter Grant and is illustrated with great subtelty by Killian Mullarney and Dan Zetterstrom . The quality of the print reproduction, the binding and the all round robustness of the book are all excellent whereas these were decidedly weak features of some editions of the Hamlyn.
Now's a good time to see Alice Holt Forest's smaller birds, as the leaves are down, they're relatively tame due to the cold weather and they often flock up too in search of food, rather than skulking deep in the undergrowth.
One of the most charming is the Goldcrest, Britain's tiniest bird. It's a warbler but it looks and behaves rather more like one of the Tits ,with whom it often associates.
Tits are the Forest's most numerous small birds, and (Let's get the obvious jokes over) one can have quite a lot of fun searching for pictures of "Great Tits" on Google Images!
The most numerous is the Blue Tit: busy, assertive, always chirrupping and flitting from tree to bush to ground in search of little seeds and insects. The Great Tit is the largest and much more boldly marked and has a louder, more ringing call.
Less well known to the layman is the Coal Tit. It looks just like a smaller, plumper version of the Great Tit but with more subdued colours. It's distinguishing mark is the prominent white patch on the back of the head. The Marsh Tit is another of the less known ones: small and slender, it has a grey-brown back and off white front with a well marked black cap and bib. Almost identical to the Willow Tit, it's actually not so difficult to distinguish if you get a good view on a sunny day because its black cap has a distinctly glossy sheen whereas the Willow Tit's cap is matt black.
Finally comes the Long Tailed Tit: not one that you can mistake as it flies through the treetops in little calling groups. Its tiny round body contrasts with its long straight tail, without which it would beat the Goldcrest to the title of Britain's smallest bird.
All the Tits tend to flock up in Winter and all visit bird tables. Leaving food out in the Forest is not really encouraged: it does help them get through the immediate cold weather, but ultimately the population of all these species is mainly determined by the number of available territories containing good nesting holes, safe from predators. Research at Wytham Woods, near Oxford (Britain's most intensively studied birds, where ornithologists have been working for over 40 years) has shown that a regular supply of food in gardens is good for Great Tits: the birds learn to trust that food will be there and do not gorge themselves. But even these clever birds suffer in some ways: they have such good success in laying eggs that the exhausting effort of rearing all those youngsters causes the parents to pop their clogs earlier, worn out by the time they reach "late middle age" which is about 5 for a Great Tit. As a father of two teenagers, I sympathise!
Meanwhile putting out an intermittent food supply only in cold weather makes the birds learn to stuff themselves, as they have no confidence there will be another meal tomorrow. As a result they get fat and risk an early death from heart disease: much like humans who alternately gorge and starve. Unlike humans the unfit, obese Great Tits run another risk: they become sitting targets for Sparrowhawks.
I've seen a big female Sparrowhawk quartering the treetops in the Lodge Inclosure and another (or it could be the same bird?) in the Aboott's Wood. Sparrowhawks get blamed by the Daily Telegraph , Sir Terry Wogan and others for slaughtering our cute garden birdies in huge numbers. They come second only to the Magpie on Middle England's avian hate list. Of course both predators do eat a lot of small birds and both have increased in numbers. But how many of those who ritually call for shooting and trapping of Sparrowhawks and Magpies keep cats and/or happily eat the produce of intensive, pesticide and hebicide-drenched industrial farming: both of which are far bigger culprits in the story of the plummeting populations of songbirds in our towns and countryside?
Nuthatches are very visible now, often flocking with the Tits. They're little blue and orange woodpecker like birds with a black stripe through the eyes . You'll hear them before you see them with their constant series of whistling notes and then you'll be treated to the sight of these busy, active little birds walking down the tree trunks head first, looking for insects or bark crevices in which they wedge nuts and pinecones before laying into them with their powerful , chisel like beaks.
Among the familiar Chaffinches and Greenfinches which are year round residents of the Forest, look for some of the less common Winter visitors. Last year at this time there were lots of Redpolls, small chubby brown, streaked birds with a bright red spot on the forehead. They're most likely to be confused with Linnets, but the Linnet is to be met with mainly in the fields and hedgerows, whilst the Redpoll is a tree-lover, especially at home up in the branches of Birches, Alders and Larches.
The Siskin is easily overlooked. It's like a diminutive, sreaky-marked Greenfinch, about the size of a sparrow but slimmer and more acrobatic. A female comes annually to our birdtable, where is seems to exist in a state of permanent nervous agitation, anxiously trying to get some food before being driven off by the more aggressive Greenfinches.
A correspondant has written in to say there are flocks Crossbills in the Forest now, ranging around in the Holt Pound Inclosure behind Birdworld, the Lodge Inclosure and in Abbott's Wood. They used to be thought of as migrant Scottish Crossbills ,which was considered to be a subspecies either of the continental Common Crossbill or the chubbier, more solidly built Parrot Crossbill. Now the Scottish birds are considered to be a distinct species, intermediate between the other two and relatively isolated, remaining at home up in the Highlands. The ones visiting Alice Holt are mainly migratory Common Crossbills. They are so named from their bills where the upper and lower mandibles are bent over, a specialism for winkling the nuts out of pinecones. They're handsome birds: the males are red and the females green.
Some of the birds are already thinking about Spring. Male Robins are singing a lot and occasionally getting a bit fractious if other males approach. Soon this territorial instinct will take over and the males will attack and even kill each other. We often see Robins throwing themselves at the windows or the car's wing mirrors, desperate to drive of the "intruder" they can see, with no idea it's their own reflection!
The Dunnock, that understated little brown "Hedge Sparrow" (Not a sparrow at all but an Accentor, related to Thrushes) is starting to pair up too. It won't be long before the males start displaying in front of the females, performing a little dance on the ground with whirring wings, then flying to a perch to utter a tinkling little territorial trill. Anyone moved by this touching display of love should bear in mind that as soon as her husband's back is turned, the female will avidly mate with numerous other casual boyfriends, thus ensuring the maximum number of chaps think they may be the father of her eggs and duly keep busy feeding her and the babies.
Please do contact us if you see any interesting birds or other wildlife...
...and take a look at our "Birdwatching in Alice Holt" page
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BIRD WATCHING IN ALICE HOLT
FOREST >>Click here
