Fly agaric


Druids Heath in autumn


Jim realised he could save money by setting up one of his lads to study the mole’s mind - an initiative that should have pleased the club’s treasurer


rabbit population has been hit by myxomatosis, and the birds have had to supplement their diet with earthworms. I witnessed this only recently on the 13th, where a lone bird was walking up and down like a carrion crow looking for earthworms but, with its binocular vision, not needing to stop and hold its head on one side like the crow. In the years that kestrels nest on a nearby pylon, the young have often been seen feeding on this same high protein diet. For several years, an escaped Harris hawk made a dent in the rabbit population, leaving parts of corpses strewn over the course.


In 2004, I built and put up six nest


boxes in the wood, believing that nest sites were at a premium for blue and great tits. I soon realised that grey squirrels had enlarged some of them and taken them over as cosy snugs, and that the tits chose to go on a housing waiting list for their preferred conventional nesting sites. The following year, a blue tit nested in a rotten oak and, as soon as the young had fledged, a great tit moved in and reared a family.


In 2010, a blue tit discovered the perfect place to set up home: in one of the three-inch diameter steel tubular gate posts, gaining access through the slot into which the bolt fits. The regular, noisy opening and closing of the gate at the start and finish of the greenkeeper’s day did not deter the hen bird from rearing a full brood of chicks. The bird obviously couldn’t find a vacant tree hole, and didn’t fancy the nest boxes that had not been vandalised. Perhaps it even realised that one of its main woodland predators, the weasel (a recorded predator, as is the stoat) would not be able to climb the slippery steel post, even though access was just a few feet from the ground. In all, sixty-five species of bird, including the now rare barn owl, have been recorded over the time of the course. Although it was always present on the surrounding farmland and parkland before the golf course came, the English or grey partridge has taken over the golf course rough and increased its numbers. In 2010, a pair raised twelve young to maturity.


The long-tailed tit, which prefers gorse or dense stands of blackthorn, typical of the original heathland, in which to nest, has to resort to using the tall, dense Leylandii, which is not impregnable to magpies and, most years, they rag the nests and take eggs or young. The remaining few gorse bushes lie outside the course, along a lane and ancient drovers’ road, and their regular flailing by the Council has made it impossible for this bird to use this traditional, more secure, site. Perhaps Jim Lake should consider introducing some gorse on the course! To my knowledge, only one bird, the skylark, has not adapted to the course. It is plentiful on the surrounding arable land and nests in autumn-sown barley or wheat.


It is, of course, the large expanse of turf that supports not only countless earthworms but a huge variety of flies, moths and beetles, whose larvae subsist on grass roots and which are such an important food resource for birds. From autumn to winter, flocks of


redwing and fieldfare arrive to gorge themselves, not only on the hawthorn


15


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