Episode 31: Expectant Nests

Chris Skinner (00:09):

Whether it's the cheep of a sparrow, collared the dove in the background. Everybody likes to contribute whether you're a sparrow. Oh, I'll turn around in a minute or two and get one of the real songsters. That sparrow's insistent on being on a podcast. I've just turned around and there's a song thrush right above my head. Just to make sure of his dawn chorus. He's singing each note two or three times. That's the way to wake up in the morning. 

Matthew Gudgin:

What a wet night it's been and it's still raining to some degree early in the morning, but it's light here at High Ash Farm. It's the home of farmer Chris Skinner and it's Chris's weekly Countryside Podcast. Thanks for inviting me along again, Chris. 

Chris Skinner:

You're more than welcome, Matthew. I had hoped when you had arrived, the rain would stop and the sun had come out. You're the sunshine really that lights up the farm. 

Matthew Gudgin:

It's the nicest thing you've ever said. It's the only nice thing you've ever said. 

Chris Skinner:

It's the only nice thing I've ever said yes. That's just because we're going slightly mental at the farm at the moment. The ground is so wet. For example, we've had a quarter of an inch that's about seven mil of rain last night. Rain's always welcome. They say wet may long hay, but it's only just the beginning of April and we're parked next to a 30 acre field of hay. 

(03:22)
 It's looking verdant green. It's a huge field and we're on the northern boundary of it. And behind us is a venerable row of old oak trees. And in my youth I was sort of transfixed, I suppose is the word with one of the birds here that is Little Owls and I put lots of boxes up for them. They're old hollow oak trees, which are ideal nesting sites. They are a native species, but they became extinct in the last ice age and didn't manage to fly across the north sea to re-inhabit Britain. But somebody got quite also transfixed with them, if you like. There's probably better words to use, but in 1888 it was Lord Lilford introduced them into the UK. He brought about a dozen across from Holland and put them near his home in Nottinghamshire and they're also called the Nottinghamshire Owls as well now, but a British native formerly we've got fossil records of them from the last ice age. 

(04:28)
 Athene Noctua is the scientific name. And why I love them so much is that they're tiny. Imagine if you just clench your fist and put two little feet coming out of the bottom of it and put that on a branch. That's what we have to look for. They're perfectly, perfectly camouflaged and the young are so funny. Smaller or as small as a tennis ball with these two giant feet coming out the bottom. It just looks like a children's cartoon, but I can promise you they're for real. Anyway, we are now going to drive down the row of oaks and right at the end of this avenue is a very old ragged and torn ash tree full of holes where limbs over the years have been wrenched off and there's lots and lots of hollows in the tree and that's the perfect place. And the other good thing about the habitat here is it's grassland and little owls love this open habitat and their main diet is worms. 

(05:35)
 They'll eat beetles as well. So like all owls, they'll swallow the prey hole and anything indigestible, they'll eject as a pellet. 

Matthew Gudgin:

So this tree here, this one here. 

Chris Skinner:

Now we may be lucky. The thing that little owls and all owls don't like really is persistent rain, which we had last night and high winds and I don't know, we're just driving. We're only about 10 yards away from the tree. My camera is there. 

Matthew Gudgin:

We're strapped to one of the branches. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. And I'm just looking into the hollow Matthew. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And where is he? 

Chris Skinner:

And I can't see one at this moment. We might be lucky. I can see something further back in the hole. Let me have a look. Something just flew into the hole, but that was a fly or a gnat. Let me use the binoculars. 

Matthew Gudgin:

The rain is coming down harder at the moment. 

(06:32)

Chris Skinner:
 Yes it is. So I'll just reverse back up. Sometimes little are quite inquisitive birds and they'll come out and actually have a look and see what's going on. 

Matthew Gudgin:

And it's difficult to see, isn't it because we’ve got the shapes of the tree are similar. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. The old venerable old ash tree still has its keys on it. They're the seeds from last year. And I keep thinking, I'm seeing things and I see lots of drops of rain on the window. And at the moment this typical isn't it? It's starting to rain again. If the rain stopped, I could almost guarantee the little owl, which I think is the male. I think the female's already incubating her eggs. She will. He come out and just sunbathe. So diurnal they'll come out during the hours of daylight and night as well. So what we'll do, oh, Matthew, oh, if I just go back a bit. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh yes, I can see a flutter of wings. Yes. Oh, he's gone around the other side. 

(07:48)

Chris Skinner:
 Absolutely typical. 

Matthew Gudgin:

He's out and about. He's out. Listen, look, maybe heard the noise of the engine. They're inquisitive as you say. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, they're inquisitive. Where are you? Right. Where is he? Incredible, isn't it? We've got a bare tree with no leaves on at the moment and we could clearly see that bird and it just hopped off and I mean they run a lot, I suppose of all the owl species that are at High Ash, we've got lots of tawny owl, a few barn owl and little owl, I suppose we'd call them terrestrial. They've got these short, very, very powerful legs, feathers quite a way down the legs and they'll scurry about, isn't that a shame? He's just hopped around the other side. But he was out on the tree out in the open, getting wet, which is what they don't like. Now we can't see him at all. 

(08:48)

Matthew Gudgin:
 He's up there somewhere. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. Yeah. But tiny, just imagine that clenched fist. And we're looking into a large, so we may be lucky. So what we can do is go off and come back in about 20 minutes time and hope this drizzle has stopped and see if we can get a full view. However, fail safe is, the camera will give all the secrets away. It's focused on the part of the tree where he loves to sunbathe. Yes, owl sunbathing, you can't make it up. But the male is tiny. I think it's probably its first year. The plumage is stunning. It's sort of brown and black stripes and spots all over it. They don't make a proper nest. They'll just nest in some hollow in the tree, maybe a few flakes of wood around the base of the nest. But I just fall in love with them and they do have a bad reputation. They will kill small rodents. Main diet as I said, is worms, slugs, beetles feature quite largely when you examine their tiny little owl pellets, which are close to an inch long. Whereas a barn owl pellet, the regurgitated indigestible part of what owls eat would be what? 50 mil? About two inches long, much, much larger. And these are only what, nine inches…. Matthew…. No, no. He just came out and popped back in. He's back on the, he's in that hollow. He's back on the hollow at the top of the tree. 

(10:26)
 He's leading us a merry dance, but we'll give him a chance to come back. Incubation of the eggs, there's between three and five eggs laid. They're round, they're spherical eggs, not like normal egg shaped eggs and it takes about 20 odd days to incubate them. And then the young are in the nest for another three weeks, four weeks before they fledge. And both parents will then feed them. She does most of the incubating as well. So anyway, we'll just drive off and leave them in peace for a minute or two and then come back. 

(11:11)
 Matthew Gudgin:

Well if little owls are playing hard to get, there's one bird species you can't fail to notice at this time of the year because they're so busy aren’t they? 

Chris Skinner:

You're telling me! This is peak nesting time for the rooks. Here at High Ash Farm we've got two rookery, one just on the edge of High Ash property. It's in the grounds of Caister Hall and it's really, really successful. Around 180 nests this year. And then there's a satellite rookery, which is unusual because it's in coniferous trees and it's in the field right beside us. And there's between 50, 55 nests there some are still being built by youngsters from last year. And because it's been raining so much, many of the female rooks are hunkered down on their nests and they're right beside us. Maybe we can just get out of the cart and have a little closer look at them. 

(12:06)

Matthew Gudgin:
 The rain is relenting. Chris's pickup truck. We can stay dry and oh, what a magnificent sight. Fabulous sight of all the nests high up in those trees still bare after the winter. And lots of flapping bin bags. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, that's what they look like. They've got lots of nicknames. Rooks, the old Parson as well because of the baggy feathers on the legs, they come quite low down. The old church Parson and many of the rooks years ago were in churchy yards because they didn't get shot in the church yard. And so it became quite popular. And many of the old elm trees, which is rooks favourite tree to nest in, we've lost those. So they've moved across to ash and oak when they're just as happy in them. There's an oak in front of, there's only about what, 30 feet high and there's 20 nests in that one alone. 

(13:03)
 I would think 

Matthew Gudgin:

This is high density housing really, isn't it? There's not much room for any more here. 

Chris Skinner:

No, no, it's packed isn't it? It goes all the way along this strip of wood and then they start, there's one almost above our head here and some just in front of us, another big batch through the back there, right over Stoke Holy Cross Road, Norwich to stoke Holy Cross Road. So slightly smaller than the carrion crow, I suppose a rooks about 18 inches from tip of beak to tip of tail. And the carrion crow would be an inch on top of that close to 50 centimetres. And that rounded diamond shape tail. Some are flying over us at the moment, but it's fairly quiet, although we can't see it. The nests are quite high up. They've got flat tops and the female is incubating the eggs and they haven't flown off. 

(13:58)
 They're trying to keep the eggs dry because obviously they're chill pretty quickly in these wet conditions, which we have this morning. 

Matthew Gudgin:

So it would've been pretty tough for them overnight. 

Chris Skinner:

Oh yes, yeah. But they've got to keep the eggs warm and it's really hard. And so they're very prone to disturbance and here they seem well protected and they repair the nests each spring there's another old adage, which isn't true either. Many of them are false. And that's when rooks build their nest high up in the tops of trees you're in for a fine summer. And when they build their nest low down, it's going to be a wet summer. So you could always tell, but generally they'll use the same nest they did last year and repair them and they'll pick sticks up off the ground, they'll break sticks off neighbouring trees and even worse, they'll steal sticks from each other's nest when the other partners left. 

(14:55)
 Some clever ones will hop across and steal sticks. So the nest is a stick platform just gently perched in amongst the twigs high up in the trees and then they'll sometimes line it with dead grass, sometimes even a bit of mud in there. Four five eggs about an 18, 17, 18 day incubation. And once the female's incubating, which they are in front of us at the moment, she generally hardly leaves a nest, just a bit of cleansing first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And then she's provinded by the male who goes out and finds soil invertebrates for her. And so she's able to keep sitting on the nest, keep the eggs warm, and then once they hatch they're quite vulnerable, the young as well to high winds and to excessive rainfall. So it's tough up there on the top of a tree because the trees aren't in leaf at the moment. 

(15:54)
 So they are vulnerable and numbers, particularly in the 1960s and 70s, crashed right across the country. Some of the Scottish rooks had as many as 3000 rook nests in a single rookery. And this is much more of a common number here, around 200 in total on High Ash Farm. One flying right over the top of us. So the males go off and they will find food suitable to bring to the female and they've got a gullet which swells right up underneath the beak. It looks as though some poor male rook has swallowed a huge gobstopper and he brings that back and regurgitates it to the female. 

Matthew Gudgin:

For the younger listener gobstoppers were the sort of sweet that Chris would've spent his pocket money on back in the neolithic era

Chris Skinner:

A penny gob stopper. It was pretty much the size of a ping pong ball to give you an idea and you'd make that last for hours and you'd walk about with this huge swelling on the side of your face, which I often did. 

(16:56)
 And my mum had always accuse me of having mumps several times. Anyway, they're great. Very, very entertaining. But there is one adage that is still a bit true I suppose, and it really relates to the fact that rooks will raid farmers crops, which is why they're public enemy number two or three down the list of vermin as far as farmers go, because they will particularly, they're fond of maize, they will use their long beak, which is about two and a half, three inches long and white round the base of the beak so they can go right into the soil and find maize seeds, spring barley at this time of the, is another favourite, either the shoots of the barley or the grain itself if you haven't drilled it deep enough. Anyway, this old adage is it describes the fate of corn that farmers sow on their fields and it goes like this ‘one for the rook, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow.’ 

(17:56)
 So you get one plant for every four seeds you plant. Now the crows have mentioned at the beginning of that one for the rook, one for the crow. And crows are pretty much innocent to be honest, whereas their smaller cousins, jackdaws also fairly communal like rooks will sort of raid the seed as well. But it's a lovely sound. It kind of, I know many people think lovely bird song like thrushes or nightingales sort of capture the countryside. But I suppose this cawing, I suppose you'd called it in the background here, very much tells me there's a rookery nearby. They're kind of chatting and communicating with each other. 

Matthew Gudgin:

So they work together. They're very intelligent, aren't they? 

Chris Skinner:

Oh yes. I love to see them. Courtship starts in October, November and the male will, they've kind of pair for life really, but they renew their vows if you like, not by sort of exchanging rings or anything like that. 

(19:01)
 The male will corkscrew down to the ground and very flamboyant flying. He will also courtship the female in November, December and January to sort of build up her reserves. And when you watch young rooks out in the field and the parents will come and feed them, the young rook will squat down on the ground and quiver its wings. And the female will also do that. But when you actually see them courting, use a pair of binoculars and they're out in a pasture, they bow at each other and the female will turn around, she'll fan her tail beautifully and then also bow back. It's very, very gentle to see. I just love it. So they're hugely entertaining. They're still sadly shot because they are regarded as a pest. And farmers will go out in early May once the young rooks have left the nest, they leave a nest before they can actually fly. 

(20:00)
 And at that stage they're called branches and that's when they get shot, hopefully for the farmer just to reduce the numbers. But it doesn't really, they’re all around us. There's another rookery at Dunston right by the A140 and the whole eastern county’s dotted with rookery all over. 

Matthew Gudgin:

I think there's the largest rook colony anywhere, isn't there? Just up the river from here at Buckingham? 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. You follow the river. Yeah, out eastwards from Norwich, there's an area called Buckingham Fen there and that's a roosting colony. There's nesting colony there as well. But during the winter months, it's not only the UK's largest corvid roost, it's the largest one in Europe with well over 10,000 corvids roosting together. And we saw about a week or so ago, a raven here and there's a reputation that there's one or two ravens actually nesting in Norfolk, not far from where we are standing.

Matthew Gudgin:

But don't forget the rooks and look up and enjoy the rookery. A particularly wonderful site at this time of the year with those high up nests, little platforms where there are eggs and not long to go before we see baby rooks.

Chris Skinner:

Exactly that. Branches, they're called Matthew, little branches out on the twigs and I've managed to put the camera up at one of the hides on the farm and the rooks actually filling this gobstopper space up for a ping pong ball under the beak and you can actually see them stuffing it. So going to be on High Ash Farm Facebook. And you can then see that lovely glossy plumage, which rooks have shining in the spring sunshine. You'll say what? Sunshine? 

Matthew Gudgin:

We've got a little coming through here. I think there might be. 

Chris Skinner:

It's a bit of blue sky. So what we'll do is skip back and see if we can catch up with those little owls. 

(21:56)

Matthew Gudgin:
 Well back to the scene of the crime and Chris.

Chris Skinner: 

Matthew, it's a sunbathing little owl. 

Matthew Gudgin:

This is the same tree. Yes, but it's a bit brighter now and I've just looked at the binoculars through the wrong end. That's a good start. 

Chris Skinner:

That would be called the little owl if you did that right? 

Matthew Gudgin:

Whereabouts? 

Chris Skinner:

Yeah, eight feet up. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh yes, I can see 'em facing us. Ah, he's lovely. Isn't he perfect? He's very distinguished looking eyebrows. 

Chris Skinner:

Just like me. Absolutely right. We are a cricket pitch length away and beautiful, very dark black pupils with a yellow iris around the outside. I'll stop there because that's 20 metres and you can see that perfect camouflage plumage. There you are, is absolutely perfect. 

Matthew Gudgin:

He's frowning at us. 

Chris Skinner:

They always have this rather grumpy look. 

(23:06)
 Don't say anything about my moods, but they permanently look like that. Even the youngsters have that same frowning expression. I couldn't want anything more perfect to illustrate a little owl for you sitting there. It's not frightened or anything. The feathers are quite puffed up. It's had a wet night, so it's probably hungry and that wouldn't surprise me at all to see it hop out onto the ground and catch a beetle in front of us or an earthworm because if it's wet they have trouble hunting. But in times of plenty, particularly when the female's incubating those eggs in there, the male will gather lots of extra food and he'll hide it. He'll have a little cache point somewhere very close to where she's incubating things like dead mice, worms, beetles, it all goes into a pile and they kind of like their food, what you'd call high, I suppose it gets a bit smelly, but it then attracts flies and of course the little owl will have the flies as well. 

(24:15)
 So it is a kind of funny kind of larder if you like, but that is perfect. Can you see it Okay ? 

Matthew Gudgin:

Very well and the little owl is the perfect little version of his bigger cousin. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. To give you an idea, the body is no bigger than a tennis ball and the head is a little bit larger, but it's about song thrush size, to give you an idea. Right now, what we'll do is just start the truck because we have been spoiled and we're just pull past very slowly. And I'm going to open your window, your side, and now we have 10 yards away, magnificent close view. Look at that. I promise you it's not a stuffed owl that is as close as you'll ever. And there's the camera pointing straight at the little owl. 

Matthew Gudgin:

So this view will be on the High Ash Facebook with the rooks. 

(25:15)

Chris Skinner:
 You are absolutely spoiled. That is why I've fallen in love with them. They're very obliging. The white eyebrows are astonishing, aren't they? What are you, eight yards away, something like that. 

Matthew Gudgin:

So close standing stock still, but he's turned his head around to make sure he's got us in sight the whole time. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. And there's the feathers on the feet. And the other thing that amuses me, the size of the feet are colossal and they kill their prey with these talons which have very sharp claws on them and failing that if it's a prey larger than itself, they can kill things like jackdaws. They got to raise a sharp beak. But one of Britain's most persecuted owls still sadly, and a lot of gamekeepers don't like them because they have a reputation of taking young game chicks as well. Although I did mention, and it is true, the main part of the diet is worms and beetles. So really. They're the farmer's friend.

Matthew Gudgin:

Small in stature, but large in personality and just a wonderful sight. The little owl. 

Chris Skinner:

Yep. I couldn't make it any better. That's perfection. He's going to turn round and go back in. The hollow tree is right behind him. No, he stayed there while we drive off. Perfect end. 

(27:00)

Matthew Gudgin:
 Well just before we sign off for this week with Chris Skinner, it's time for some of your letters and emails. Julian Lawrence says, it was great to hear you from Wheatfen Broad, a truly magical place. Part of spring I love watching and listening to is dunnocks charging around there on steroids. Over the years I've observed places with dunnocks almost behaving as though they're in a leck. Have you noticed or heard of this? 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. I've often watched dunnocks particularly early in the spring before they're paired up properly and they nearly spend their entire existence as a trio, a menage a trois no less, and usually have three of them. We had a lovely video sent to us about two weeks ago of a male dunnock, the most sort of the alpha male, I think we can call it pecking away at the female's posterior because there's another male lurking in the background. 

(28:03)
 And so before this menage a trois sorted out properly, you sometimes have three or four males around a single female. And it does look a bit like a leck because they hop around on the ground as though they've got sort of very powerful batteries inside them. Yes, so I have noticed that. But well done. Good observation. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Julian enjoyed the recent episode about hares and also said frogs or lack of those mentioned we had none in our year round wildlife pond. What have you seen Chris?

Chris Skinner:

 …just rang across in front of us. There's just as we mentioned hare, and it's run through a flock of pigeons and put the pigeons up.

Matthew Gudgin:

There we are Julian. You see we've got a live hare there for you. But apparently the frogs have come back. 12 frogs and clumps have spawn followed. So listeners hopefully never say never. Maybe just a little bit behind. 

(28:55)
 So the frogs were late in Halesworth. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. There's been two batches of spawn laying this year. I've noticed that at the farm first batch very early around mid-February, I found my first clump on Valentine's Day then it's been quiet and now we're into April. There's been a second batch of frog spawn, not totes swarm laid at the farm. Here. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Anna Miller is tuned in the Weaning Valley. Hello to you, Anna. I live in a small valley in North Yorkshire on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and the forest of Boland. I'm an amateur botanist and nature lover and I love your podcasts. 

Chris Skinner:

Oh, thank you very much. We love those comments and Rachel and Chris greening listening to the Norfolk Mangrove podcast, usually it starts with some gentle music, but for this episode, you began with a deep buzz of a bee. My husband was quietly doing a jigsaw puzzle beside the speaker when I began playing it. 

(29:53)
 And he thought there was a giant bee in the room flying beside his head. He was up and heading for the lounge door in a second. I haven't seen him move so fast for ages. That's Rachel and Chris Greening. 

Chris Skinner:

Well done Rachel!

Matthew Gudgin:

Judy Allen. I live on the west coast of Wales and we have a good population of red kites, buzzards and ravens, but I never see kestrels. Why is this? 

Chris Skinner:

Well, red kites and kestrels don't really, they're not comfortable bedfellows, although they don't use the same prey. I have seen the kites here at the farm and they're occasional visitors one or two a week every week here now in this part of Norfolk and they will dive bomb the kestrels. I've seen this behaviour the other way round as well with kestrels bombing the barn owls, when they come and feed early in the morning just at daylight, a kestrel will swoop down and make the or force the poor barn owl to drop its prey. 

(30:55)
 So a kind of easy way of hunting. Of course, bluetits did this in the 1950s and sixties when you had doorstep milk deliveries. Birds learn new behaviours and so that is perhaps the reason. And you've got other raptors there as well. And often when there's too many raptors in a particular locality, there's not enough food to support them all. Although having said that, kites are carrion eaters and kestrels very much catch a live prey like small mammals and even beetles and worms as well. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Stephen Taylor, we've got your photograph here of a small bird with yellow plumage and just perched eating a seed off a bird feeder there. And Steven says, this is siskin in my garden, a photo I've taken for the first time!

Chris Skinner:

Yes, becoming more common in garden and particularly on garden feeders. Best way to describe a siskin is a slightly smaller version of a green finch. 

(31:56)
 It's got a very indented v-shaped tail and the male siskin has a very flamboyant black cap and there's greens and yellows all over the bird nesting conifers mainly in the northern part of the UK, but occasionally, particularly during the winter months, they'll come down further south into this part of UK and visit bird feeders. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Hello to Ron, who lives in Old Buckingham. Dear Chris, I found that over the last 18 months the birds in my garden seem to have gone off of using the niger seed feeder. The seeds stay in the hold and they start to grow. The goldfinches are still around and enjoy the seed heads of cornflowers at the right of year. My local pet food shop feels that their sales of niger seed have gone down as well. Can Chris suggest any reason? 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, it's pretty logical. It's been such a mild winter. 

(32:50)
 Goldfinches are feasting out on natural food, if you like, and their natural food has started early this year. Dandelions, some of the farm have already finished flowering and produced the little seeds with a plume on them, which fly off in the wind. And that's a favourite food. Remember for many bird species, we're still in what's called the hungry gap and you don't have new seed being released by plants until they've gone right through their lifecycle. So that's one of the main reasons. It's the mild winter and alternative food sources as well. And gold finches are really good at finding seed sources and at the farm here and other farmers in the locality here also got them lots and lots of teasel and they love just feeding on the teasel heads and thistles as well. Very popular last year, not in farmer's fields, but they're increasing in numbers. 

(33:46)
 Field thistle, creeping thistle we call it. And that's a favourite food of goldfinches in the winter months. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Final email for now comes from Jeff Tucker. Jeff says, we've just got back from a fortnight's holiday, my wife and I, and we were away from the internet and mobile phones, so we'd both saved up some podcasts for when we were on the plane on the way back. And my wife nearly choked on her wine when we were sitting on the plane when Matthew said my name and my email was read out. You very kindly offered to let me have some water fleas if I visited the farm. We live near Limington in the new forest just opposite the Isle of White, isn't it? But we've already booked a few days in June to come to Norfolk. We hope to see your wild flower meadows. Will this be too late though? 

Chris Skinner:

No, you should be bang on time then and I'll stock you up with some water fleas. And that's a first on the podcast, A listener asking for fleas. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Well, it keeps everyone up to scratch, doesn't it? 

Chris Skinner:

Oh, boom, boom. 

Matthew Gudgin:

Now if you'd like to email the podcast, it's quite a straightforward address, chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk and we look forward to reading all your emails and letters. We still got some of the old fashioned snail mail, don't We? 

Chris Skinner:

Certainly do and it's all welcome. We just love the response.