New dippers on the Alyn

J6124The stone bridge across the River Alyn has a brick missing on the underside of the arch, and dippers nest in the hole every year. This year, I had spent some time trying to catch the instant when an adult hands over a beakful of insects to one of the gaping mouths protruding from the hole – it does so in flight, with no hesitation, and is gone.

I had photos of the food pass from the previous day, good enough to see that both adult and chick close their eyes at the instant their beaks meet, but I went back today to see if I could capture an improvement. As I was setting up my hide, I suddenly realised that one of the chicks was standing on a stone in the river just a couple of yards away from me. I had the opportunity of photographing it on its first day out of the nest!

The chick flew to the opposite bank, but once I was in the hide, it forgot about me, and returned to the stone, where it searched for food. I was struck by how active it was in its search, and how confident it was in its watery habitat. It even landed in shallow but fast flowing water and bathed, ducking right under.

After a while, I noticed that it was displaying, but it turned out that it’s target was another chick which had fledged.J6063There followed an amusing interlude during which the chicks appeared to beg for food off each other!

 

More hazels revealed

Went for a walk along the river this morning, a grey morning with occasional soft rain, but lightened by the yellow hazel catkins. A couple of months ago, I only noticed one hazel tree right beside the path, but now all the others were easy to see.

Hazel tree with catkins

They were in such numbers that I wondered whether the wood had been hazel coppice at some point in the past. I must take a more leisurely stroll through the wood some time and see if I can find any saplings.

 

Looking out for hazel

It’s really easy to spot hazel trees at this time of year, even when driving around. The yellow catkins make them really obvious, and are easily distinguished from the darker alder catkins.Hazel catkins in early spring sunshine
What has been striking is the scarcity of hazel trees which are a result of natural reproduction. Around my village, I have found only three such trees, including this one in the hedgerow along the main road.
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However, there are plenty of hazel in the shelter belts beside main roads which have been built in the last ten years or so. I have looked around some of these planted trees, and have yet to find any new hazel seedlings there – the grey squirrels must find them an invaluable food resource in autumn.

The hazel tree problem

Along the bottom of my garden is a hawthorn hedge. Over the years it has varied between three and eight feet tall as my enthusiasm for hedge trimming waxed and waned, but I have always kept a sharp eye open for newcomers in the hedge. After over forty years, there are now two trees standing above the thorns – a holly and a hazel.
Holly and hazel in hedgeThe holly is in danger. I have been struck by how often the gardens of older people become dark and dreary. Trees and the larger shrubs escape upwards when the ability of their owners to keep them in order wanes as the years go by. I am determined that my garden shall not suffer this fate, and I have already felled the two conifers which were darkening one corner. The holly in the hedge is bolting upwards, straight as a die, and I think that it may have to be reined in very soon.

However, the hazel is safe. After all, it will only grow to 20-30 feet, and it will be easy to keep it under control by coppicing it – this involves cutting the trunk just above ground, with the result that, like dragon’s teeth, lots more stems appear to replace it. In fact, the continual pruning during hedge clipping, before I noticed it there, has already stimulated lots of new shoots.

In the autumn of 2011, a few years after letting the hazel have its head, it produced its first serious crop of nuts. I love nuts, so I collected every one I could find, and my tasty stash lasted several months. Last year, I looked forward to another hazel nut bonanza, but it didn’t happen. I could hardly believe it when an extensive search of the tree produced only a single nut. My sense of nut entitlement was outraged! What could have happened?

The first thought was that maybe this should have been expected – so many nut producing trees have good years and bad years, and why should my hazel be any different? My second thought involved the non-appearance of my daughter’s pears this year and the likelihood that the pollination of her trees and my hazel were both affected by the interminable rain last spring. Another, rather outlandish, theory took shape when reading about hazel reproduction – like many others, all hazel trees carry both male and female flowers. The male flowers are the catkins, dancing in the early sprng breeze as they shed their pollen.

Hazel catkins

The female flowers are much less obvious, consisting of what looks like a leaf bud with the crimson styles – the female bit that catches the pollen – protruding.

Hazel female flowers

The outlandish theory appeared when, reading about hazel, I found that the catkins on a tree cannot fertilize its own female flowers. I don’t know the exact details for hazel, but the simplest scheme would be for the catkins to release their pollen before the female flowers open. So the theory goes that my crop of nuts resulted from pollen from another local hazel tree – and it has been cut down, with no other hazel within pollen range. Hmm.

Outlandish or not, it sealed the fate of the conifers in the opposite corner of the garden. Down they came, and I had decided to replace them with a couple of hazel trees which I would coppice when they were large enough to cast too much unpleasant shade. Then I noticed that, under the hedge behind my compost bins, there were about a dozen hazel seedlings – obviously, I had not managed to find every one of my hazel nuts! J5811

I dug up two of them and moved them to the opposite corner where they look rather forlorn in the large empty space vacated by the conifers.
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Another theory involves grey squirrels, and arose from my reading about woodland management. They are not regular visitors to our garden, so we do not have the continual battle, that so many people have, to prevent the theft of food from their bird feeders. However, we get the occasional visitor that gets chased away as soon as it is spotted, and causes us and our birds no concern.

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Recently, I have been reading Oliver Rackham’s book in the New Naturalist series called “Woodlands”. This is a scholarly book, displaying a fascinating breadth of knowledge about the subject, including the history of woodland, our understanding of the life of trees, present problems and recommendations for the future management of our woods and forests. I was struck by a passage which read:
“Hazel has fared badly. Grey squirrels have taken away its means of reproduction. Usually all the nuts have disappeared by August while they are still green and unviable, and a young hazel is a rarity. Hazel is thus a threatened species, although its longevity will see it through some centuries to come.”
Could it be that a grey squirrel cleared our hazel’s nuts unnoticed? I doubt this, because I did not notice any debris on the ground, but now I know another reason why I will not tolerate them in my garden.

Since becoming aware of Rackham’s revelation, I have been looking for young hazel in my local woods, and I am struck by the rarity of hazel of any age. So far, I have only found one old specimen beside the riverside path – no seedlings anywhere near it. I shall be keeping a sharp lookout for them over the next few weeks – they’ll be easier to spot when their catkins are waving in the breeze.

 

Sunlit uplands

Hey, let’s go up this post.
Why would you want to go up there?
There are sunlit uplands, filled with rotting carrots, up there – I have seen it in a dream, I tell you!
Rotting carrots? I love rotting carrots. Hey, Jimmy! This guy says there’s rotting carrots up the top of this post. You coming?
Yeah! Me too! And me!
C’mon, little Slimey …
There’s sunlit uplands as well, mind.
(Puff) I can do without sunlit uplands. (Pant) Bit steep, isn’t it?
………………
There! Isn’t the view from here wonderful?
Where’s the rotting carrots? There’s nothing here!
Yes there is. Just look at these beautiful uplands.
You said rotting carrots – sod your uplands!
etc, etc.