Friends of Marshland Wildlife
Group/Individual: Sue Cooper
Yesterday we stole an hour or so to look round the local patch, an event we do regularly and with great enjoyment.
It is winter and the ground is covered with snow and the roads icy, but at a slow and steady pace we are in little danger, unlike the moorhens, all 36 of them, which have been unable to distinguish field from road and are scattered, feeding all over the place. A pair of brown hares look ready to box but turn their backs on each other and look for food.
We scan for the small herd of roe deer. Here they are safe and sound, six of them foraging in a shallow drain. They raise their heads and gaze skywards as perhaps a dozen whooper swans land to join a score of their mute brethren a hundred yards away.
We check the banks as we see from the corner of our eye a little shape in the water. An otter hopefully? On closer inspection we decided it is a mink but we have spied otters before and found plenty of spraint. In the summer at a secret site we watch water voles.
Nearly home we decide to check out the badger setts. All is well there and we disturb more brown hares and several rabbits in pursuit of their dinner.
Over a cup of tea we record the afternoon’s spoil. We have 56 species of bird and half a dozen species of mammal, seven if you count the mole hills. During the other seasons we count moths, butterflies, dragonflies and as many flowers as we can recognise.
Soon we can take out the bat detector and make recordings of the local bat species – pipistrelles, Daubentons, noctule and brown long-eared bats.
Why do we do it? The natural world is diverse and ever changing. Nothing is ever the same, there is no duplication. Every visit brings something new and is fascinating. If we lose the connection between ourselves and the natural world we may lose our souls. This area was once described as a grey, barren landscape by a Guardian journalist. We soon put her right!
Friends of Marshland Wildlife has over a hundred contributors. Everything is done on a voluntary basis and we have great support from the Marshland St James Resident’s Association.