Nature Notes - August 2023

Sickleholme Nature Notes

August gave us a variety of weather patterns which probably confused our wildlife as much as it did us. Early in the month we enjoyed three idyllic days when golf was almost incidental to enjoying the splendour of everything around us or, as William Carlos Williams so delightfully put it - In summer, the song sings itself.

A wet spell then preceded a cool end to the month which saw Swallows flying at knee height across the course to feed, and there was a definite feel of an early autumn. The latter was well evidenced by the bright red berries appearing on our Rowan trees (my photo image is attached), which will provide much food for thrush species in due course. Sickleholme has quite a few Rowan, a favourite tree of mine, which is also referred to in older books as the Mountain Ash. Another sign that the year is progressing was the departure of the local Swifts. Most of these nest on houses close to the entrance to the course and have been seen and heard over the course throughout the summer.

My comments in recent months about bats prompted a welcome response from Marie Athorn. Marie has a bat detector (a device that records bat calls and identifies the species) and she has kindly offered to help us discover which types of bat we may have.

We also received another report on our nest boxes from Alan Kydd, who had completed his final circuit of the year, assisted by Steve Clarke. After a bumper year in 2022, occupancy was down although at least 70 young birds have fledged. There was likely to have been some disturbance at the southern end of the course due to the railway workings and Network Rail’s mitigation project has also caused issues relating to a number of new boxes that have been introduced. Unfortunately, it hasn’t yet been possible to obtain a map showing the quantity and positioning of these, and those that have been found are placed too high for monitoring or essential nest repairs. Two of the existing boxes had the access holes enlarged by Great Spotted Woodpeckers but one of these was then occupied by a pair of opportunistic Robins. Still no activity at the Little Owl nest box but a Barn Owl has been roosting at the site provided in the barn, so that looks very encouraging for next year.

Bryan Barnacle

Rowan Berries