Bird Report
by Martin Iddon
The communal roost of jackdaws near the toll house on the Launceston Road in Tavistock made quite a spectacle each evening in early March.
Jackdaws
Over 300 birds wheeled and tumbled acrobatically, whilst making their raucous ‘jack, jack’ calls, before they finally settled for the night. They will soon pair off and find their individual nest sites. These smart members of the crow family are smaller than crows and rooks and they can be identified by their grey nape and bright pale eyes. They are hole nesters and will use large nest boxes, (say 30cms wide by 30cms deep and 45cms high ), with an opening near the top of at least 15cms in diameter. As well as holes in trees they nest
in church towers, rocky crags, ruins and chimneys, which they block with sticks in their nesting attempts. They can also be seen at this time of year on the moor collecting wool scraps to line their nests. They are intelligent birds that were once occasionally tamed as pets. They can supposedly mimic the human voice, and have been known to collect shiny man made items. Their diet is made up of insects and seeds, but they are sometimes accused of stealing bird eggs and fledglings. I am not convinced about this.
I am however sure that carrion crows, cousins of jackdaws, do prey on nesting garden birds. A pair of crows is already unfortunately nesting in a tall tree in the garden and magpies are busy nearby thatching their large, ball shaped nests, with the prickliest sticks they can lay their beaks on. It is ironic that these egg thieves go to such elaborate efforts to protect their own nests. The RSPB insist that these members of the crow family do not have a negative effect on garden bird populations, but I’m sure that the blackbirds and song thrushes locally have a very different opinion. In recent years they have raided all the nests in my garden.
Another member of the corvid family that is very conspicuous at the start of the breeding season is the rook. They nest in colonies or ‘rookeries’ in sometimes quite urban situations, like those opposite the post office in Tavistock. Here about dozen pairs of birds caw noisily as they repair last year’s nests. They quite blatantly steal each nesting material from each other and squabble until they lay their eggs. This sound is very real sign for me that spring is nearly here. A really large rookery in full voice can lift the spirits and dispel the winter blues. The site of the jackdaw roost, mentioned at the beginning of this article, used to be home to a very large rookery indeed, but numbers have dwindled dramatically here in the last few years, and it
Rooks will sometimes nest in quite urban situations like those opposite the Post office in Tavistock
dense gorse as can be found on Roborough Down. During the hardest part of the winter the RSPB were giving gloomy predictions as to how badly some species would cope with the prolonged freezing conditions. Observation during the breeding season will give some sort of indication as to how many of these birds have survived.
Magpie
By the time you read this the first summer migrants should be arriving. Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers will be amongst the first species to get back from their African hols and they will announce their arrival with their distinctively different songs. I can’t tell the difference between these two species by looking at them, but I can identify each by its call. Being able to identify different bird calls is very important if you want to improve your location and recognition skills. The RSPB website is an amazingly good way of matching a picture of a particular bird to its song. If you don’t have a computer then there are DVDs on the market that do much the same thing. The dawn choruses of May are so much more enjoyable when you can identify the individual singers. Watch out for guided walks to such places as Grenofen Woods. You will have to get up before dawn but you will be richly rewarded for your efforts.
the-diary@hotmail.co.uk
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would be interesting to know where they have taken up residence.
The arrival of spring is supposed to be two weeks behind this year and this might badly affect those birds that time their breeding to coincide with the insects that abound when leaves are on the trees. If birds like blue tits breed too early then there might not be enough food for the nestlings. Fingers (or wing tips) crossed! I was pleased to see a pair of great tits checking out one of my nest boxes the other day. It has been in the same spot unused for at least four years and I had just about given up hope for it. The way they chased off some blue tits suggests that my efforts making the box will not go unrewarded this spring.
Cold winters have a very negative effect on our local Dartford Warbler populations. These birds can be hard to locate but are more easily located on warm, still days in spring in areas of
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