281/365 The golden marbled butterfly

08 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects, nature

Tags

British butterflies, butterfly, Wall brown, Wall butterfly, WWT Steart Marshes

According to my recently acquired Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies (Peter Eeles, Pisces Publications, 2019 – if you like butterflies, this new book is a must!), the Wall was once known as ‘the golden marbled Butterfly, with black eyes’ – such a wonderfully descriptive name!

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Wall butterflies are not common in my part of south Wales (they’ve suffered severe declines throughout Britain in recent years) so I was absolutely delighted, during Sunday’s bird club trip to Steart Marshes, to see not one but three of these lovely creatures. The first was braving the blasting wind along the coastal path at the edge of Bridgwater Bay and there were two more enjoying the much more sheltered warmth of the car park near Steart village, flitting from dandelion to dandelion in their quest for nectar.

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Though the butterfly on the coastal path looked a little battered – understandably, given its exposed position, the two Walls in the car park looked very fresh so, although the Wall usually has only two generations a year, I assume these were part of a third generation that can sometimes appear in early September.

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280/365 Steart’s Longhorns

07 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by sconzani in animals, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

British cattle, British cows, curious cows, Longhorn cattle, longhorns, WWT Steart Marshes

On the way back from Portland (and again yesterday – as part of our annual round of field trips), Glamorgan Bird Club members visited the WWT (Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust) reserve at Steart Marshes. It was blowing a gale during our first visit and it had been a full-on weekend so we only visited one hide, Polden. There were few birds to be seen but we spent an interesting hour in the hide, being entertained by the local residents.

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And they appear to have found us extremely entertaining as well, coming right up to the windows to check us out – those smears on the glass are nose prints!

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Although we weren’t entirely sure of their breed, the WWT website confirms these are Longhorns, a traditional British breed. Their horns weren’t actually very long but some looked to have been trimmed and perhaps these beasts weren’t yet fully grown.

The cattle, owned by local farmers, are used to graze the saltmarshes as part of WWT’s environmental management programme. And, perhaps due to the unique taste their meat acquires from that diet, they have apparently ‘been attracting the interest of some of London’s finest eateries’.

I’m not a meat-eater so I definitely wasn’t sizing up their palatability but their handsome features and evident curiosity were very appealing.

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Steart Marshes Longhorns

15 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by sconzani in animals, mammal, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cattle with horns, English cattle breeds, English Longhorn, Longhorn cattle, Steart Point, WWT Steart Marshes

As well as the stunning birdlife at WWT Steart Marshes on Saturday, I was particularly intrigued by these cattle, which one of my birding friends identified as English Longhorns.

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One of the advantages for local farmers of the wetland development on the Steart peninsula is that they can now graze their cattle on saltmarsh. This gives the meat of these cattle a unique flavour that is apparently highly prized by some human carnivores, so it attracts a better price for the farmers. I thought the beast shown below was already destined for the abattoir as it looked to be dead already.

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But no – turns out it was merely sleeping heavily and, after five minutes or so, raised its enormous head to blink sleepily at the passing humans. What an impressive beast it was!

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The horns of these cattle were fascinating: they seemed to grow in all different directions. One animal had one horn growing upwards, the other down, and the creature shown below must surely have had its horns cut, otherwise it would have been in danger of them piercing its face.

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For all their huge size, these seemed to be gentle giants. The younger animal in this photo came over and began to rub against and lick the head of the older beast – its mother?

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Still, I don’t think I’d want to venture into a field with any of them any time soon.

Birding at WWT Steart Marshes

14 Sunday Oct 2018

Posted by sconzani in animals, autumn, birds, nature, seaside, walks

≈ 1 Comment

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Bar-tailed godwits, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cattle egret, coastal habitats, Glamorgan Bird Club, Golden plover, Greenshank, Hare, Roe deer, saltmarsh, WWT Steart Marshes

Storm Callum was wind-blasting the south-western counties of Wales and England with 50-mph-plus gusts yesterday but that didn’t deter 10 mad keen (some might just say mad) members of the Glamorgan Bird Club from heading to England, to the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust property at Steart Marshes in Somerset, for a day’s birding. And what a magnificent place it is and an incredible day we had!

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This is a man-made landscape, engineered to deal with local flooding issues and future sea-level rises, but it has the advantage of providing much-needed and extensive salt- and fresh-water wetland habitats. You can read more and watch a video on the WWT website.

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I don’t have a lot of close-up photos to share from this trip. As I mentioned at the start, it was incredibly windy so the conditions for non-blurry photography were difficult, and many of the birds were distant so I was relying on my bins and the generosity of my birding friends and their telescopes for better views.

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That doesn’t mean you can’t see some incredible sights here with the naked eye though: the miracle of hundreds of Lapwings or Bar-tailed godwits rising and flying in unison is one of Nature’s finest wonders, as are views of birds of prey like Merlin and Hobby screaming like fighter jets across the marshes in pursuit of prey.

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We also saw small numbers of Roe deer and Hares, scampering about in the fields.

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For the serious birder, there was much to quicken the heartbeat, with 13 species of wader seen, 12 Cattle egrets, a Spoonbill and a Glossy ibis. I managed to add five ticks to my year list so I was well pleased.

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This is a site that will only improve in future years and will almost certainly continue to attract star birds, but it’s also a place for everyone to enjoy the many walking trails, the excellent wildlife viewing facilities and the stunning beauty of the saltmarsh, an environment more colourful than I had imagined it would be. If you can, do visit!

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My species total for the day was only 49 but this list is about quality, not quantity. Five of these were year ticks for me: Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Shelduck, Eurasian Wigeon, Mallard, Northern Pintail, Pheasant, Little Grebe, Glossy Ibis, Spoonbill, Cattle Egret, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Cormorant, Marsh Harrier, Common Buzzard, Kestrel, Merlin, Hobby, Moorhen, Coot, Ringed Plover, European Golden Plover, Grey Plover, Northern Lapwing, Knot, Little Stint, Dunlin, Ruff, Common Snipe, Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Eurasian Curlew, Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, Common Redshank, Black-headed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Woodpigeon, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Skylark, Wren, Starling, Pied Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Goldfinch and Linnet.

The ones I missed but others saw or heard: Eurasian Teal, Northern Shoveler, Mediterranean Gull, Stock Dove, Collared Dove, Raven, Jackdaw, Blue Tit, Cetti’s Warbler, Blackbird and Chaffinch.