Has the time arrived for landscape scale re-wilding finally arrived?

The Safari saw a headline a couple of days ago.

English farmland could be cut by 9% to hit green targets

The article beneath the headline made for interesting reading and although it might seem like 'another' threat to farming from an already precieved as farming-unfriendly government there are fantastic opportunities to be had for our beleaguered wildlife, not forgetting the the UK is one of the most wildlife depleted countries on the planet. By coincidence for Christmas we had received this book and read it during the bad weather that prevented going out on safari in January.

We're a big fan of re-wildling and that doesn't mean land abandonment which many folk out there seem to think it does. To maximise the diversity of wildlife an area can hold there does need to be some management otherwise one vegetation type will tend to dominate (dependent  on local variations in soil composition/moisture etc). However, and this is the biggy, the management doesn't have to be done by man, although some works like stopping us peatland drains and removing invasive non-native species eg Rhododenron ponticum need to be done by us humans. What happened before us humans brought fire, axe and sheep? The answer is wild animals would have shaped the vegetation across landscape scale areas. 

Does anyone watch Wildearth TV? The reserves to highlight southern Africa's majestic animals they use all used to be farmland but now have fabulous ecosystems thanks to letting the land recover from cattle overgrazing and introducing larger native animals. We don't have Elephants and drove our nearest equivalent, Aurochs, to extinction many many years ago but we do still have plenty of proxy animals that would do the job of long lost wild cattle, horses and Wild Boars. We have deer two, although only two are native, two are naturalised and are 'probably?' OK the other two are definitely not OK - more about those later. 

Several of the reserves we visit use proxy animals to manage the habitats mainly for specific species/associations of birds although in a couple of cases it is shorter vegetation to enhance the overall diversity of wild flowers that is the target.  Here are some examples of our favourite management tools going about their work.

Longhorn Cattle

Redpoll Cattle

Mixed cattle including a Belted Galloway

Exmoor Pony

Redpoll Cattle

Redpoll Cattle

Redpoll bull

Highland Cattle

Highland Cattle

Carneddau Pony

 

We should have drawn the southern boundary line to include the steep Patterdale Common and the northern boundary line to include Matterdale Common too, basically taking in all the western watershed  into Ullswater from Grisedale Beck (= Wild Boar stream) to Aira Beck at Dockray. Arnison Crag (bottom right probably alludes to White Tailed Eagles, Whelp Side (bottom left) - Wolves, Hart Side (top centre) - deer possibly Fallow Deer as Red Deer males are known as stags not harts, Swineside Knott - Wild Boar. Now what do all these creatures have in common? They're all woodland species (the White Tailed Eagle is a wetland/coastal species but often requires big trees close by for nesting), yet if you were to climb to the top of Birks above Black Crag and looked slightly west of north you'd barely see a single bush never mind a whole tree. There's got to be an opportunity to relieve that area, 26 sq kms and at least probably that much again going up to Dockray, of its sheep, do some tree planting, allow some tree regeneration, prevent any non-natives establishing (need humans to do that), bring in suitable hardy cattle and pony species (there's an income stream for the farmers - who might no longer be called farmers but Landscape and Biodiversity Stewards (and hopefully be handsomely subsidised for becoming such) - - would 'Conservation Grade Meat' bring a premium price to their pockets?) The question of free-roaming pigs is a little more tricky but there could be the potential to use inobtusive electric fencing enclosures which can easily be moved around to prevent the pigs over-grazing, or better still what about good old fashioned proper job wild Wild Boar? Wild Boar could be controlled (in sustainable numbers) by those  members of society who like killing things, instead of shooting millions of tame non-native Pheasants how about learning how to stalk Wild Boar and use the meat...hmmm WB sausages - very nice indeedy. And therein lies another issue - how do you  prevent the cattle and ponies over grazing? In the old days those whelping Wolves would have kept our beasts on the move not lettin g them settle in any one area too long. Now there's no chance of bringing Wolves into this area and that could potentially be a problem, we're not sure what the answer is - someone walking behind them with a sharp stick??? Oh you mean a shepherd! 

Now all this might sound like pie in the sky but it is beginning to happen, even in the lake District NP with the new Skiddaw Forest Cumbria Wildlife Trust project, the more established Wild Ennerdale and the Restoring Hardknott Forest Project which aims to create and restore 630 ha native woodland and other wildlife rich habitats on what was recently one of the Lake District's largest commercial coniferous forests - there's another discussion as to whether or not foerestry plantations should have ever been allowed in a National Park in the first place but it is possible that the trees were planted before the NP status was confered - we don't know. Neither do we know if Skiddaw Forest or Hardknott intend to have proxy grazers, Wild Ennerdale and Wild Haweswater definitely do.

Not far to the south and west of the map above another exciting re-wildling project is afoot. This time it's not an area or a habitat but an iconic species that was extirpated from this area many years ago, namely White Tailed Sea Eagles aka Ernes (Heron Crag, on the main Ambleside to Keswick road, and Arnside Knott across the bay etc are place names that allude to their former presence). We can't wait to see this project get off the ground - if only to get WTE on our garden fly-over list. It would be great to watch them catching Mullet off the mouth of the River Wyre or plucking feral Canada Geese from the shores of Windermere in front of gobsmacked tourists. Let's hope it gets the go-ahead before too long but we do have some reservations about any potential impact on nearby seabird colonies at St Bee's Head and RSPB's Hodbarrow reserve and also on potential distubance to the eagles themselves just from the sheer numbers of people on the fells these days. Anyway fingers crossed it happens soon...and they don't 'disappear' like almost all of the re-introduced Red Kites have.

Moving on...our National Parks are probably where most of the effort should be concentrated and not only the upland  ones as there are other areas that would benefit such as some of the former Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, our nearest one, the Forest of Bowland, is about as an unnatural area of little beauty as you can imagine, it could be so much better. There are three main land owners, the water authority who to give them their due are doing their but but the other two need a bit of persuading, one of whom is the King, Charles III, who allegedly has conservation running through his blue blooded veins - it certainly doesn't show up there on his hunting estate nor at Balmoral (in Scotland) where if he were to re-wild his estates rather than haveing them as killing grounds maybe some of his neighbours might follow his lead. Come on Charlie Boy grasp the Nettle what's stopping you?

9% of farmland given over to nature might sound like a very frightening amount to some folk but when you consider that much of that 'farmland' is barely productive at the moment and sheep aren't a necessary staple in our diets and that we pay heavily to subsidise them along with often paying through taxed to drain land for them, then pay again for flood defences to cope with the increased water flow off the mountain - there's nothing wetter that wet long grass but there isn't much long grass up there its all been nibbled away, and then we pay again in increased insurance premiums to cover the losses when floods do happen. When you look at it that way and the very few jobs provided by that amount of land it makes sense to us to restore its biodiverisity and enrich its landscape. There's probably quite a few more jobs available in the latter scenario as well.

Going back to those members of our society who like killing things, they could become conservationists too by doing some essential culling of some of our non-native nightmares - we're looking at you Muntac Deer (the carnage we saw on the roads between Oxford and Southampton last year was horrendous, the carnage they cause to our woods and associated wildlife is even worse), Sika Deer, Grey Squirrel, Canada Geese to name but a few. They could fulfil their bloodlust while providing our beleagured wildlife a very helpful service rather than being  part of the problem. Not sure about the freal geese and the squirrels but venison should be almost free in this country there's so many deer causing so many problems. The squirrels and geese - well there's lots (far too many!) dogs n cats that need feeding, would the pet food industry be interested in free range produce; shot with non-toxic ammo though. How about "Eat the Aliens" as a slogan?

Not just woodland/forest either, parts of Somerset flooded again last week not as devastatring as a few years ago but enough to show there's anm on-going issue -  the book describes opportunities for large scale wetland restoration in various areas of the country especially Somerset...Pelicans? Yes please!

all well and good this know-it all townie  - Community buy-in essential - aging multi-generational sheep farmer how to engage and encourage them to change/retrain - economics, government initiatives and incentives, the policy is just about there

Fewer sheep, fewer problem deer, more Wild Boar, Beavers, Moose and Wisents please and Nightingales which used to nest in Lancashire just about living memory. The Safari is going to admit to watching a TV show called  A Place in the Sun, when they visit France the sound of the local area being viwwed by the punters is always Nightingales. And can we have more Corncrakes which an elderly relative now passed away could remember calling on our family farm when she was a young girl - oh did we not mention we're not just a another suburban townie keyboard warrior know it all.

All we want is a future abounding with wildlife rather than the currrent position of letting it dwindle away with the shifting baseline getting lower and lower despite the odd success story like the Bittern comeback

and Cetti's Warbler colonisation,

these are just feel better blips on the otherwise inexorable downward spiral to mass extinction on these isles. Being closer to 70 than 60 now were unlikely to see the benefits of all this good work even if it starts at first light tomorrow morning. But given the opportunity wildlife can spring back very quickly as the Knepp project down south has shown - somewhere we'd like to visit for a good shuffy round one day. All it needs is the will and some sensitive management and our future generations will be looking back asking why didn't they do it sooner. 

There has to be community buy-in to these projects. After all you can't just turf folk off their land, well ntot in a civilised society you can't. But how do you convince an aging sheep farmer whose family have been sheep farmers for generations to give his land over to nature, even with compensation what is he going to do next? What's in it for hime? Can he quickly learn a new set of livestock skills to look after cattle rather than sheep, can he become a woodsman - does he have the time to wait for trees to grow so he can harvest them - does he really feel comfortable running wildlife watching safaris - questions that those affected will need answering. Maybe the government coud waive the recently introduced inheritance tax for those farmers that would be affected by the tax that join the schemes. We'd much rather se a lot of carrot and not a lot of stick in this transition to a better state otherwise there's going to be a lot of resentment. It's going to be hard enough to get the status quo vested interests on board as it is. Look how difficult it continues to be to get raptor persecution to stop or even a prosecution on the few occassions there's enough evidence.

Here's some pics of recent 'winners'

Little Egret

Spoonbill

Roe Deer

Tree Bee

and some recent 'losers'

Corn Bunting

Skylark

Willow Tit

Tree Sparrow

And don't forget it's not just about birds, it's as much if not more about soil improvement (structure, microbiome and losing toxins), mosses, lichens, liverworts, fungi, the herb layer, invertebrates (see above), fish, amphibians and reptiles as well as the birds and mammals - it's restoration of a whole (at least as whole as can be) functioning ecosystem including these chaps - one day? Maybe the wilder parts of NW Scotland first, can't really see England going for Wolves anytime soon...but you never know, if you don't ask  you certainly won't get!

Lynx should be out there soon. However, numpties recently illegally releasing them inappropriately might have added a few years on to that wait though.

Anyways it's all food for thought so what do you think? 

Where to next? We expect to be out  on safari again later this week - when the weather imroves, honking it down today!

In the meantime let us know how much wilder your outback could be given a few sympathetic changes.

A change of scenery

The Safari picked up CR and sped off down the motorway to Brockholes where we met up with IH. This was another weather induced alternative safari venue, our original plan was to head north to look for more snakes and stuff but increasingly poor weather forecasts for up north forced us into a last minute change of plan. So we decided to stay south of the worst of the weather an visit a site we should go to more often but don't.

From the car park we could see three Roe Deer grazing on the march beyond the visitor centre - that's two safari's running the first thing we've seen were deer! Off we went to the floating visitor centre for a closer view from their cafe terrace. Not a bad start to the day.

In the eaves of the cafe roof were a number of cobwebs, each full to busting with little black midges, we hope they're the non-biting type!

A quick look at the fish, either Rudd or Roach it's hard to tell them apart from above, as we crossed the boardwalk back to terra firma and over to the riverside walk beyond. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs sang in the trees lining the lake as we passed. At the river the little wooded area a sign invited us to look for Jays...our Challenge bogey bird. Would this be the only one we saw never mind photographed today?

In the river IH soon found a couple of Redshanks and a Common Sandpiper on the far bank and we picked out a male Goosander with a couple of Mallards while high in the distance but all too quickly disappearing behond a row of tall trees was a large bird probably the resident Osprey but it never reappeared for confirmation.

One resident that did make his presence known was 'Kevin the car park Kestrel'. A very popular character with the regular visitors. We first saw him high in a tall tree.

But after a few minutes he swooped down right in front of us to a much smaller riverside bush.

From there he went a little further away to land on a short sign board but for some inexplicable reason all our shots were blurry, it's possible he was too close and we had our lens' focus limiter set to >10m. Whatever it was it was very annoying when we downloaded our pics later that evening. Kevin made his excuses and left us to continue our walk. The river was now quite, there were very few Sand Martins about and no Common Terns fishing and no further sign of any Ospreys.

Cutting back 'inland' IH had to go back to his car so we slowly ambled in that direction, we'd not gone far when CR spotted an Orange Tip butterfly. The sun when behind a cloud and the butterfly settled on one of its favouritev food-plalts, Cuckoo Flower. Expecting it to flit off as soon ass the sun reappeared we took a few shots with the 600mm lens.

But as it stayed put we were able to get the macro lens out and get down on our hands and knees for a much closer (and cleaner) shot. There were three of these butterflies on that small patch of Cuckoo Flower grounded by that cloud.

Reaching the car park we could hear a Sedge Warbler in the distance then saw someone pointing a camera at a patch of reeds not far away...probably there then! She walked on before we reached her and although we could still hear the Sedge Warbler couldn't see it in the thick vegetation. Persistance paid off and we got a fleeting glimpse of it as it sang from a bit of a hollow in the reedbed but there was no chance getting a pic. Hopefully there would be others around the site for us to have a go at.

We had our lunch at the Lookout hide where we tried to get some Sand Martin pics as they tazzed to and fro in and out of the nesting bank...they were mostly too quick for us and it wasn't the best shooting through the big glass window at a bit of an angle.

Also at an artificial nest site was a Common Tern, the nest platform was a bit too far away for a pic but luckily it came closer to sit on a float (for the anti-blue-green algae pumps?) #143 for our Challenge.

From outside the hide we tried again to get some Sand Martin shots but failed miserably. A pair of Great Crested Grebes did their dance for us though.

 

Moving on to the next view point a group of birders pointed out a showy but distant Sedge Warbler to us, happy days - #144.

We watched numerous Black Headed Gulls and now two Common Terns picking hatching insects of the water and scanned the island for Little Ringed Plovers but saw none. The next hide gave us closer views of the hawking gulls and terns but not really any good opportunities for pics due to intervening bankside vegetation. Outside the hide though CR had found an Alder Fly and a small Alder tree covered in hundreds of Alder Beetles, it's not that long ago these were quite uncommon now they're so numerous they're defoliating large trees.

A couple of small 7-Spot Ladybirds were close by too. A bit of sunshine was bringing some insects out at last. The walk to the Motorway Hide didn't give us much and from the hide the most interesting thing was a clump of Timothy grass bedecked with a species of small snail, how odd. There were a few snails on the surrounding grass but nothing like the density this small clump had attracted.

Beyond the hide the edge of the path had a Brown-Lipped Banded Snail every few inches for many yards, all singles spaced about 3 to four inches apart - how weird, what was all that about?

From there it was into the woodland with its floor of Wild Garlic and Bluebells but not many birds as we'd now hit the mid-day birdy lull. We were concerned by the amount of large trees that had been felled, almost all were Ash so we guess it was somethihng to do with the current outbreak of Ash Dieback Disease but sad to see and we did wonder if any of these might have survived and become ressistant to it in the furute or could have been left as standing dead timber for a whole host of invertebrates. One tree that wasn't marked for felling had us intigued for a bit.  A lovely patterned bark

with a Beech-like leaf

identified it as a Hornbeam, a species we don't see on the Fylde coast. Hornbeam is a known attractor of the lovely but usually elusive Hawfinch and these did formerly occur in these woods until at least 40 years ago. 

Continuing our circuit back to the visitor centre when we were almost there a flock of Whimbrel flew overhead from behind us

And awy they went over the low hill on the far bank of the river. At the visitor centre one of the Roe Deers was still grazing.

While on the water a Great Crested Grebe sailed past with a small fish.

As we followed it to see where it might be nesting we spotted a couple of Coots squaring up for a fight and it developed into a pretty rough affair.

And then it was all over as suddenly as it started, just the wings up clucking and posturing to suggest anything had happened. Fortunately no-one got drowned.

Now with a bit of time left in the afternoon we decided to leave and head for a site not far away and new to all of us, Grimsargh Wetlands, built from a series of small redundant reservoirs. It holds a good number of roosting Whimbrels at this time of yearand we hoped to see some. Which we did but no sooner had we arrived than they departed stage right.

What else could we find?IH noticed that one of the pair of Great Black Backed Gulls on the little island closest to us was sporting a Darvik ring.

Back at Base Camp we were able to inspect our pics and found it to read R16:D

We put the info on Euring and within hours had had a reply, that doesn't happen often. Apparently it was ringed as a chick on Dalkey Island, Dublin in early July 2020 and photographed there 10 days later. After that it wasn't reported again until late February '23 when it was seen at a landfill site not too far from here. There were no more reports until early April this year when it has commuted between this site and the one we just left. The pair looked pretty settled here so will they breed here?

While we were observing the gulls we noticed a Little Ringed Plover flying around. A species we never seem to get a decent pic of and today was no different, being far too far away.

And then it happened! CR shouted Jay! As one flew across the pool and landed in the nearest tree along the bank, allbeit on the 'wrong' side of it, obviously been taking lessons from last week's Willow Warblers. We seen one flash acrosss the car park earlier in the day at Brockholes but that one vanished into thick vegetation, thankfully this one stayed still just long enough to get one snap off before it flew leaving just a blurry tail in the bottom corner of the next frame.

Bogey bird down, #145 and only 20 to go to reach our target. The next seven months could be painfully slow!

Looking along the bank the other way IH had seen a large number of Early Purple Orchids in flower, always good to see.

Sadly they are declining throughout the country and as they can take as much as eight years between germinating and flowering are extremely vulnerable to any change in their habitat. 

A series of seven whistles filled the air heralding the return(?) of the flock of Whimbrels we'd watched leave minutes after arriving. Unfortunately they landed on farther of the two islands.

And finally some bizarre news - we'd spent the day at two wetland sites and not seen any species of egrets so todays result is Herons win hands down! Not sure how much double counting went on today but as we had at least one at each site then the final score must have been 2(+?) - 0

At the weekend news broke of three Spoonbills on the freshwater marsh down towards Preston. One that is on our list of potential 'to gets'. The next morning we were out with t'mutt when the pocket pinged with news one was still present so back to Base Camp we went as fast as t'mutt would allow - which is not very!!! We grabbed the camera and bins and set off almost immediately hitting frustratingly slow traffic...don't these people know birds have wings and can fly at any given moment...get a move on!!!!!!

Well we got to the site in about 40 minutes, way longer that it should have taken and fortunately it was still there, feeding well down the pool, as we drove past the row of parked cars in the lane looking for somewhere to pull in with a view. We found just the right place, lowered the car windows stuck the camera out and ARRRGGGHHHH schoolboy error - no card in the camera. T'mutt had to cover his ears as a rant of expletives rattled round the inside of the car. Back to Base Camp it was then.

The following day the news broke in the same fashion that it was still there so we dragged t'mutt back to Base Camp threw him in the car went inside for the camera checked it had a card in it and grabbed a spare battery too just to be on the safe side.A much quicker journey today, or so we thought...until we got held up by a bin waggon doing its rounds on a narrow but busy main road. No need to panic, the Spoonbill was still there. It was catching quite sizeable fish, we'd never thought or even imagined there'd be fish in that pool as we've seen it dry out in hot summers.

At least you can tell what it is, #146; yesterday's too far zoomed in phone pic could have been a snowman - well it is still cold enough...when will this winter end?

Where to next? Probably northwards again but where exactly will no doubt be weather dependent.

In the meantime let us know who's coming into flower in your outback.