Snipe

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary is about an encounter with snipe on Chapel Fell in Weardale.

Usually the first hint that there are snipe around comes from the sound of males during their territorial 'drumming' flights, when they fly a switchback course around their territory. During their dives single feathers on either side of the tail stick out (see photo above) and produce a strange reverbatory bleating sound.  As soon as the sound reaches the ground the snipe has already begun to climb again, so it's not easy to find the high-flying fast-moving bird against a clear blue sky from the drumming sound alone.

Click here to listen to the sound of a snipe drumming.

When this one had finished its display flight it landed on a fence post close to where I was standing and began its mating call - a weird metranomic tick-a, tick-a call that rises in volume then suddenly stops, restarting after a brief interval. The bird soon flew off, but .....

.... not very far, landing on this tall pipe and calling all over again. It seemed reluctant to leave and I discovered why ...

.... when the female casually walked out of a muddy patch of rushes just a few feet away from the wall that I was leaning on. The camouflage from her mottled plumage was exquisite and when she stood still it was easy to lose sight of her. I had time for just one quick picture before she sprang and zig-zagged away across the fell, towards her consort.

A memorable encounter.

St.John's Chapel, Weardale

It was only a little over a fortnight since we'd taken our regular circular walk around St.John's Chapel in Weardale but, when we visited again on Saturday, the intervening period of almost dawn-to-dusk sunshine had transformed the landscape. All the early summer flowers, like the wood cranesbill, had run to seed and perfect haymaking weather meant that all the meadows had been mown. 

Even though this was only July, it seemed as though the summer is slipping by and it felt, as they say around here, 'proper back-endish'.

Harebells and crested dog's tail grass beside Harthope burn

Marsh woundwort in flower beside a ditch at the bottom of Chapel Fell

The frothy blossom of meadowsweet, once used for flavouring mead (the name has nothing to do with meadows, it refers to mead).

Monkey flower Mimulus guttatus in the gravel beside the river Wear. Thirty years ago, when I first saw it on this spot, this alien plant from the western United States was much commoner along the river than it is now - it seems to have gone into decline.

Rushes flowering on the slopes of Chapel Fell. For much of the year these are dull plants but for a brief period, when they flower, they look very attractive in the sunlight (double-click for a clearer image)

Timothy Grass Phleum pratense, flowering in corners of meadows that the mower missed. Very similar to meadow foxtail Alopecurus pratensis, but that flowers in spring and this flowers in mid-summer.

A most heartening sight - one of twelve freshly emerged small tortoiseshells on creeping thistles, on the flanks of Chapel Fell. These butterflies seem to be doing very well around here this year - we had seven at once on the Inula flowers in our front garden this weekend.

Spot the fish: a trout, keeping station in the sunlit river below a waterfall, catching whatever the river delivers and only given away by its shadow - the fish's back is a very close match for the colour of the underlying rock.

Up on Chapel Fell the lapwings have finished nesting and are now forming flocks with their juveniles.

Agitated lapwings and hysterical redshanks...

You can't walk far on the fells in Weardale at this time of year without causing a stir amongst the nesting moorland birds. About a dozen pairs of lapwing tried to see us off the premises when we walked up onto Chapel Fell, above St.John's Chapel, yesterday morning. When the camera freezes their wings in mid-downstroke like this it emphasises their extraordinary length and width, which allows them to perform those dead-defying aerobatics during courtship.

There were redshanks nesting near the footpath too. Both parents took to the air with hysterical piping calls and flew slowly overhead, trailing their legs and attempting to draw us away from their nest.

Chapel Fell

You know when spring has really and truly arrived when you hear the mournful calls of golden plover that have returned to nest on the slopes of Chapel fell in Weardale. 

We flushed this pheasant on the lower slopes of the fell too. Weardale is becoming infested with these birds.

Down in the valley bottom the sandpipers have returned to the river Wear - always a welcome sight and sound.

Where the Bodies are Buried ...

Today's Guardian Country Diary describes a field excursion with some Durham University biology students to Chapel Fell, between Weardale and Teesdale in Co. Durham 


We were lucky from the weather and the views were stunning, although there were still patches of snow on the ground so it was pretty bracing up there. This is just about the last place in the local landscape to show signs of spring but if you take your eyes off the view and look at the ground under your feet there are plenty of signs of growth in the upland mosses. Some beautiful lichens thrive here too.

Bogs like this are deep pools filled with Sphagnum moss and are a potential death trap. Stroll onto this fine green 'lawn' and you'd instantly disappear up to your neck (at least) in ice-cold water. 

Sphagnum moss is a living sponge that retains vast amounts of water, thanks to its unique leaf structure which you can see by clicking here. Once you get about a metre down from the surface it's pretty anaerobic and preserves biological materials (like drowned bodies) extremely well. You can read about some fine examples of corpses exhumed from peat bogs by clicking here.

In more open patches of water the moss takes on this very attractive starry appearance.

Sphagnum species identification is a specialist skill (there are around 36 species listed in the latest field guide) that I've never mastered and there are several species up here that would keep dedicated bryologists occupied for some time, including ...

.... this delightful claret-coloured example.

One day I'll learn to identify them, using his excellent key.

Polytrichum species thrive on the drier banks ....

.... and  this one,  which I think is Hylocomium splendens, has intensely red stems bearing yellowish leaves and does well amongst the heather stems that have yet to show much sign of new growth. 

This is also home to some fine lichens (mostly Cladonia species) .....

I think this may be Cladonia diversa

Vegetable Vampires 4: Eyebright

Eyebrights Euphrasia spp. are possibly the most attractive of all the hemiparasites, which all link their roots to those of surrounding plants and siphon off their water supply and mineral nutrients. There is a bewildering number of species in this genus - 21 species and over 60 hybrids listed in Clive Stace's New Flora of the British Isles. This little ground-hugging example, which I haven't identified, was growing on lead mine spoil tips at Middlehope Burn in Weardale, and ...

.... this much taller one, part of a dense population of thousands of plants, was growing amongst yellow rattle in one of the high pastures on Chapel Fell in Weardale.

Up on the fell tops..........

We followed a circular route today, up onto the flanks of Chapel Fell from St.John’s Chapel in Weardale, then down to Ireshopeburn and back along the River Wear. We could hear golden plovers’ plaintive calls through the haze, coming from the rough, boggy pastures near the fell top but the lapwings, further down in the grazed pastures, were much more vociferous, with their squeaky alarm calls and that strange creaky, groaning noise that their broad wings make as they beat the air during their wild aerobatics. They’ve already laid eggs and have a hard time defending their nests against crows; we found one egg smashed and eaten, with tell-tale beak marks, and watched the desperate lapwings driving off repeated incursions from their tormentors. There don’t seem to be as many lapwings holding territories on the fell as I can remember in previous years.