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Leigh
Glover is a ‘painterly painter’ with a
notable freedom and looseness in his work displaying a keen sense of colour and
movement. His paintings of swans on the Thames at Windsor reflect both the
majesty of the swans and the extraordinarily deep colours, transparency and
movement of the river. 30% of the sales price will go to BSWT.
(Click on the picture to go to Leigh's web site.)
"Swan Notes" News items written by Trust members and appearing in both "The Berwick Advertiser" and "The Berwickshire News", weekly newspapers circulating in the Berwick and Borders areas. For those living outside the Berwick area, here are the last few editions..
25th February 2010
I wanted to try to get a photo of the kestrel staying with us whilst his top bill grows back. It is slow process but I have got several shots of him over the past weeks which show the re-growth very clearly. I was surprised when I first saw the bird that it stood any chance of recovery but it may still be a few more months yet before it can be released.
As I still can’t drive Dick has been rushing about collecting (or trying to) injured birds. He went out after dark one evening to find a swan reported on the roadside near Wark, but although he searched for ages he was not able to find the bird. Another search in daylight was no more successful. Then he went off to Goswick golf course where a swan was seen to fly into power lines, but before he arrived the bird had managed to take off. This was the second report of swans hitting power lines at the same spot.
Another trip out the following day was to pick up a Heron the bird had such a badly broken leg that the only thing to be done was put the bird to sleep.
The last callout this week was a bit better as it was to collect a Collared Dove which had been taken home by a cat. The bird has wounds to its back but hopefully it will survive.
Thank you to all the people who have phoned to ask for advice on feeding and helping wildlife in this hard winter weather and please don’t forget to continue the feeding as the spring starts – if it ever does, winter seems to be awfully long this year - the birds will need help for a long time.
I am trying to think about fundraising ideas for this year and I would like some new ideas as some practical help. If anyone would like to join our team please phone me on 01289332057 so that we can arrange a meeting.
Finally, have been asked by Barrie to apologise for not letting you know about the Trust's appearance in the BBC1 programme Animal 24/7 yesterday, Wednesday 24th. The programme's Producer phoned him just after he had sent off his copy for last week's column to let him know when it was to be broadcast. Despite sending a PS email, Barrie didn't manage to get it included but would like to let you know that the programme should be available to view on the BBC's website for a week after transmission. None of us has seen the finished programme at the time of writing, but hope it will give wider publicity to the work we do.
That’s all for this week
Pat Goff
17th February 2010
HERE we go again. Another
year older. Birthdays tend to surprise me. I don’t think of myself as an old
man, but the numbers keep getting bigger. I was at an uncle’s funeral last
Saturday and he'd stuck it out for 92 years, so maybe you’ll be lumbered with me
for a few more years yet.
They say age brings with it certain privileges, so I’ll use that as an excuse to
have a bit of a moan and ask everyone to stop for a moment and think of the
consequences of being “kind” to animals. Feeding birds in bad weather is
generally to be encouraged, but if this is carried on throughout the year, you
could be killing them with kindness. If food is provided for them on a plate -
or bird table - they will soon come to rely on that and lose the need to forage
for natural food themselves. If for any reason you stop putting out food, say
for holidays or illness, the birds may have forgotten how to find seeds and
insects that would be their normal diet.
One extreme example of this was when Simpson’s Malt were stopped from
discharging their waste barley steepings into the Tweed estuary after carrying
out this practice for about 30 years. The swan herd had got used to hanging
around the sewage outfall for their next meal of barley to come pouring out. One
consequence of this was that when anything nasty came out of the outfall the
swans were there en masse and in 1991, for example, almost 200 birds got all the
waterproofing removed from their feathers and a massive swan washing exercise
was initiated by our vet, David Rollo. Subsequently, of course, the trust was
formed. When the barley supply was stopped by a Common Market directive the
swans didn’t know how to find enough natural food and went rapidly downhill.
After we started getting undernourished birds brought in to care for we decided
to feed them ourselves to prevent them starving. This we only did in the winter
and gradually reduced the amount of corn until now the birds have spread
themselves out a bit more thinly and are able to feed themselves on natural
river weed.
As Pat has mentioned, one wily swan discovered that if he went round the doors
in Tweedmouth looking pathetic enough, people would give him food.
Now the same thing is happening in Spittal and bowls of food have been seen
placed outside for the lazy swan to dig into. The people who are doing this are
probably genuine animal lovers and feel that this is just an extension of
feeding the garden birds on a bird table. Unfortunately, the swans are getting
more used to walking on roads and I feel it is only a matter of time before
there is a nasty accident with some poor motorist hitting a swan or swerving to
avoid it and hitting a human.
If the only food available to them was in the river, they would stay there in
relative safety. The same thing applies to the gulls. If people didn’t feed
them, either deliberately or by being untidy with waste food, they would stay
where they can get their natural supply of fish from the sea.
By all means feed birds in their natural environment, but please don’t encourage
them to wander away from safety in search of an easy meal.
One more point before I get
off my soap box. Mould is a killer! Dry bread can be a slow killer to birds.
Please make sure the food you give to the birds is not going to cause more harm
than good. The slightest sign of mould is enough to cause breathing problems
such as aspergilliosis and too much white bread can cause a “pink feather”
syndrome in swans. Dry bread swells up when it gets wet, so make sure it is
already swollen before it gets lodged in a birds throat. In this case you won’t
see the bird die; it will go somewhere quiet and die of slow starvation.
Now I’ve got that off my chest I hope I will have something more cheerful to
talk about next time I see you. Pat is now much more mobile so I will refrain
from calling her names as she could probably move quicker than I can. She will
be here next week with an update on happenings at the shed.
BARRIE MORTIMER
11th February 2010
Brown and Mountain hares – What’s the difference?
On Sunday I was out helping a friend, David, out with some students he was training up as bat surveyors. At lunchtime we ate our food in our cars as it wasn’t a very nice day. David came to check we had finished eating and he noticed a bit of a skull that was sitting on my dashboard. He couldn’t guess what it was at first, however when I pointed out I found it near some white fur he knew it was a mountain hare. The reason he knew it was a mountain hare and not the more common brown hare was because of the white fur. The brown hare stays brown all winter. This gave me the idea for this week’s column – what are the differences between the mountain and brown hare.
The mountain hare (Lepus timidus), also known as the blue hare, or white hare in winter, is native to Britain, unlike the brown hare (Lepus europaeus) and rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), which are thought to have been introduced by the Romans. It has a lighter build than the brown hare, and is easily distinguished by its tail, which is completely white throughout the year, whereas in the brown hare the tail has a black upper surface. The ears are tipped with black, and the coat is brown in summer, turning white during winter. Males and females are generally similar in appearance, but females are slightly heavier.
The general form and structure of the brown hare resembles that of the rabbit, but obvious differences include the hare's longer, larger body, much longer hind legs, and longer ears with black tips. Generally, brown hares are a brown-russet colour, with a white underside. The tail is black on the upper surface and white underneath. In contrast to rabbits, which have a brown iris, the brown hare has a golden iris and a black pupil.
In Great Britain, the mountain hare is native only to the Scottish highlands; but it has been introduced to England, Wales, the Isle of Man and various Scottish islands, mainly for shooting. At present it occurs in the Scottish highlands, where it is common, the Scottish Borders, south-west Scotland, the Peak District and the Isle of Man, but the Welsh population seems to have become extinct. In England, just six isolated populations are known, and the status of the species in England seems precarious. Outside of Great Britain, this species has a broad distribution that covers most of the Palaearctic region.
The brown hare is widespread throughout central and western Europe, including most of the UK, although it is absent from the northwest and western highlands in Scotland, where the mountain hare is dominant. The reason that the Romans introduced the brown hare to Britain is because there are no records of this species before Roman times.
So keep an eye out when you are out in the countryside and see if you can spot either of these two hares.
GRAEME WILSON
3rd February 2010
The sad news about Barn Owls continues this week as several which have been brought in to us have been too weak to survive. It has been such a hard time for them. Their feathers have no waterproofing so they cannot hunt in the wet and with the continual lying snow they have not been able to see the mice and voles that run in tunnels underneath the surface. These birds evolved to live and hunt mice in large barns and for hundreds of years have been encouraged on farms, but they are losing their habitat at an alarming rate and are nesting now in hollow trees and are forced to hunt outside. Long spells of rain in previous years at nesting time has reduced hunting days for the parents and chicks have starved. The combination of both loss of habitat and wet cold weather has been disastrous for these beautiful birds.
One such bird was saved when it was found in the worst of the snowy weather lying wet and cold next to the body of another owl near the barn where they had been seen before. The couple who found the bird took it home dried it off with a hairdryer cut up food for it that had been begged from a neighbour who kept hawks. It was able to eat a little. They moved it to the airing cupboard to keep it warm and continued the feeding little and often until the bird was able to stand. Now it is strong enough to test its wings in the barn again. It was really heart-warming to hear that the bird was well on the road to recovery. I answered a few queries the couple had but I did not take their name so they will have to remain anonymous but well done to them.
A Tawny Owl with a broken wing was recovering well after an operation to pin the bone but unfortunately the bird has since died.
The swans at H.Q. are now back out on their ponds after the big freeze and are all well and can be released when the river is not running quite so fast. All the hedgehogs are doing well and one or two smaller birds are ready for release this week. So it is not all doom and gloom.
I have had a lot of phone calls about the Wandering Swan of Spittal and Tweedmouth. This bird just loves wandering round the streets and even knocks on doors begging food. He is fit and well but just seems to prefer to walk around and beg his meals from door to door. The problem is everyone feels sorry for him so they feed him thus rewarding his behaviour. For him the system works well but he does put himself in danger. He has no fear of dogs or traffic. He also seems to be very friendly with humans. One lady who telephoned this weekend had gone to walk her dog on the beach and when she turned into her gate she was shocked to find this huge bird behind her. She did the right thing, taking some brown bread she walked back to the river with the bird following and fed threw the bread on the water for him. If you see this bird or he calls on you for dinner please do not feed him and hopefully he will return to the river for his meals where he will be safe.
Pat Goff