A Swift End to a Game of Cat and Mouse

The Swift
A lovely Sunday afternoon digging potatoes came to an abrupt halt with news of a rare Swift in Yorkshire.
Initially identified as a Pacific Swift, this would have been rare indeed, but not one to set the panic alarm going as I was lucky enough to catch up with one in Suffolk a few years back.
But the identification soon came round to White-rumped Swift, the first ever record for Britain! It was surely brought up from North Africa on the same unusual southerly airflow that had Holbeach setting record temperatures in the same week - 79 degrees F in mid October.
A quick calculation told me that I could never get there before dark - news an hour earlier and I wold have been busting a gut to get there.

A couple of hours sleep and I was up again, heading through the night toward Hornsea Mere on the Yorkshire coast. I wasn't the only one. In the dim light of dawn a steady stream of birders were heading across the fields to the last known place where the bird was seen as it drifted off in the gloom last night. Our best hope was that it had headed to roost or hooked up with a group of house martins and would return to feed over the mere in the morning.

But birding does not always go to plan. Six hours stood in that field and I finally succumbed to the idea that this rarest of rare birds might just have slipped the net. Reluctantly I returned to the car and began the journey south. I was hoping to be home in time to accompany Sue to the vets with Boris - nothing too worrying but I did want to be there.

I tentatively drove back across the Humber Bridge (I am not great with heights and don't like crossing this bridge), but no sooner was I across than I started receiving messages that the swift had been seen at Spurn, a long promontory off South Yorkshire which funnels migrating birds along a narrow spit of land. Details were sparse, but I had no option but to turn around and head at breakneck speed back over the Humber Bridge, through Hull and along the torturous country roads which lead down to Spurn.
By the time I arrived the sparse details of the sighting had become even murkier. Today was starting to feel like a waste of a day, one to forget. The first sniff of a really good bird all autumn, for it has been a poor one birding-wise, and it had ended up with a disappointing end.

The Cat
As we stood dejected on a windy and desolate stretch of Yorkshire coast, the birding gods looked down and decided to shuffle the pack a little.
Phones and pagers whirred into action as news of a Grey Catbird came through - at Land's End in Cornwall, a mere 8 or so hours away.
Grey Catbird has a certain reputation among twitchers. The only previous record was on Anglesey. It was found on an October Thursday 17 years ago. The bird was highly elusive, but stayed around until the Friday. At that point I was confined to waiting for weekends to see rare birds and so I joined a small army of weekend birders in the hunt for the bird. There were various shouts and alarms, but to cut a long story short most people left disappointed. A compound full of tall gorse had been pretty much flattened over the course of the day but there had been neither sight nor sound (yes, it does miaow!) of the bird all day... except that some people were adamant they actually had seen it - these people became known as the Saturday Catbirders.

And that was it, Grey Catbird into the annals of birding history but not onto most people's lists.

I decided to head straight for Cornwall. The earlier I could get there, the more sleep I could get in the back of the estate car. And so at 1 in the morning I rolled up in a field in deepest south-west Cornwall. There was one other car there but we knew there would be many others arriving through the night. I put the seats down, laid out a selection of coats that live in the car, and tried to get some shut eye.

The Mouse
Well, that was the plan... until I heard scuttling in the roof of the car. It couldn't be, could it? Then chewing and more scuttling. The mouse (though it sounded like there might now be a family) which had been setting my car alarm off for a couple of weeks now, was clearly still living in the innards of the car!
A sleepless night ensued, only enlivened by an unsuccessful game of splat the mouse as it scuttled around in the roof space above my head.

This probably explains my bleary-eyed lack of sharpness in the morning. As the sun rose there were a couple of hundred birders ready for the Catbird show, a couple of hundred birders bearing the scars of that Anglesey bird of 17 years ago. We stared into the bushes where the bird had last been seen. For two hours we stared.
This was turning into a bad couple of days.

Then suddenly the mood changed. People were seeing the bird. A woman next to me was excitedly exclaiming that she was watching it. But the only words that came out were "I've got it. I've got it". My bleary eyes were not seeing whatever she was seeing and pleas for directions were met with "I've got it. I've got it".
Other people had it too. In fact just about everybody... except me. There's always one person who doesn't see what everyone else is seeing. And on this occasion it was me. Not a nice feeling.
By the time the bird flew I was surrounded with people quietly celebrating and congratulating each other. This was not going well for me!

Then another call, further up the line. By the time I got there the bird had disappeared again. This sighting was less convincing and I just didn't know whether to stay put or go back to where I was when the bird was first seen. 

Then another call, from where I had been standing! By the time I got there, the bird had dropped into thick cover, but I was more certain that I was just a few seconds away from seeing the bird.
Time to control the breathing and have faith that fate would indeed be cruel if the bird were never to show itself again. A really helpful birder next to me did everything he could to help me get onto the bird and then up it popped into the middle of a small sallow.
Grey Catbird!
All the effort had been worthwhile. I went from being ready to quit birding forever to enjoying the bird and celebrating with everyone else.
I never heard it miaow, but the Catbird eventually gave itself up and showed very well.

Hopes of more American birds turning up in Cornwall were high so gradually people left the site and fanned out into the valleys of Cornwall to find that elusive mega. I found myself down by Minack Theatre following the coast path. Really I just needed some wind-down time before making the journey back to Lincolnshire.

I was supposed to be chairing an open meeting of the Smallholders Committee in the evening, but it was unlikely I could make it back in time and I would be in no fit state.
And so I slowly headed back across country. My car was almost broken as one of the exhaust brackets was detached and the brake disks were badly warped. The long journey had exacerbated the problems which were combining to make for some very uncomfortable car handling. By the time I rolled back onto the farm I was feeling pretty bumped and bruised myself.

Arthur keeps me company in bed

The next five days are a blur. I don't know whether it was pushing myself so hard (but I've always done that) or just unlucky, but I almost immediately came down with a fever which had me laid up in bed for five days.

Anyway, I am just about fixed now, though still a bit tender. The car is fixed too.
We are raring at the bit, ready for more rare birds!

The Mouse (Part Two)
On the second day of my sickness I heard a dripping inside the wall of the downstairs toilet. We have been looking for a leak as a couple of long-term damp patches and a drop in boiler pressure indicated there was a problem somewhere. The drip was getting worse through the day so we eventually took the decision to call an emergency plumber - not a step to take lightly. Astronomical does not describe it, but eventually we managed to get somebody to come out without having to sell all our limbs.
It didn't take long to find water. As the plumber investigated downstairs, I started unscrewing floorboards upstairs, where the cause of the problem quickly became apparent.



Mr Mouse had been at it again!
As for the car, two trays of bait have been consumed and one field mouse has been caught in a trap.

Rodent Wars

 

After the fields are harvested, we certainly notice more rodent activity on the farm. Usually Gerry catches plenty of voles (short-tailed field voles) and just occasionally he finds a shrew's nest.

But just a day after the next field was harvested this year, he appeared with a field mouse in his jaws.

And the humane trap inside the polytunnel, which has never trapped a thing, suddenly contained four field mice.
As the weather gets cooler, so the rodents creep closer and closer. Polytunnel crops get nibbled, little furry critters scurry away as I walk the meadow or work in the veg plot, the walls of the farmhouse echo with scratching and scurrying, always sounding unfeasibly loud.
There may even be the odd bit of burrowing under the chicken houses - much bigger holes these ones. For yes. The voles, the field mice and even the occasional rat are seeking food and shelter.



A bad day at the office
for this young rat!


If you can't work out what's happened,
it tried to go through a hole in the fence
which was too small for it.


I had to put it out of its misery.


But then, it had been nibbling
at my mangel wurzels!

Now, the occasional vole scurrying through the grass, or a field mouse running up the wall of the chicken food shed, these seem cute and I could maybe tolerate them. But I once thought the same about some of the prettier 'weeds', perhaps I could just leave a few.
But no, things don't work like that. Any sign of weakness and before you know it you have a plague. And just a few mice can do a lot of damage. They don't just nibble what you expect them too.

So, regrettably, I have had to get the poison out. I try to use this as little as possible and it is best to hit them hard for a short period. Last year I did a post on the wonder that is Eradibait, approved by the Barn Owl Trust and apparently only harmful to small rodents.
See here - Oh Rats! However, having purchased a large and expensive tub of this panacea, I have found that unfortunately the rodents don't actually seem to like the taste of it! They do say to ensure that no other food sources are available. The problem with this is, surely, that if no other food were available there wouldn't be any rodents in the first place. And they clearly prefer whatever they're already eating compared to the Eradibait pellets. Shame.

Of course, cleanliness and hygiene are important. We are careful not to put meat on the compost, we don't top up the birdtables at this time of year and we keep all our grain in rodent-proof containers.
In the house, all the most attractive foods are kept in plastic tubs with secure lids, though the cats tend to ensure that scurrying little creatures stay in the roof spaces and the walls.

This little critter scurried out
 from underneath my laptop in the front room.
Presumably brought in by Gerry to 'play' with later.

 

But, just for the moment, there is a bit of chemical warfare going on.

And this field mouse has taken up residence
in the food shed down by the chickens.
It is brazenly bold, but I can't afford to feel sorry for it.

A Mouse In The House

Wednesday 18th January 2012

A Change in The Weather
Grey skies and drizzle overnight at least meant a rise in temperatures, the cue for a spot of digging. I've still got a huge task to get the last few veg beds converted from weed-ridden ex-pasture to perfectly tilthed patches of goodness just waiting to nourish oodles of healthy home grown food. I find the best way to tackle this is to do what I can whenever I can, gradually biting chunks out of the task until the end is in sight.

I thought my pig ear tags had arrived today. I need them to come, but at the same time feel a little apprehensive about the prospect of attaching them to the pigs' ears. I want to do it well in advance of them going away, otherwise they will distrust me (more than they already do) and enticing them into the trailer will be tricky!

As it was, it was my first consignment of seed potatoes, Swifts, one of the earliest of First Earlies. If I can get a quick enough harvest these potatoes will command a premium price for a couple of weeks.

There's a Mouse in the House

Tell tale signs...

Occasionally, of an evening, you hear scratching and scurrying from inside your walls.

It sounds like something of the approximate size and grace of a porcupine!

Your cat is desperate to access cupboards, under sinks, walls, ceilings...

The poison tray which has sat empty for a while has been nibbled.

I once even found a nest of leaves inside my welly.

Now, as much as we have tried to catch the little blighters in humane traps, they are clearly a lot cleverer than we would like to think. We do have several plug in rodent deterrant devices, and these do seem to work quite well, but nothing is 100% effective. We are scrupulously clean, especially in the kitchen, and all food is in cupboards, plastic boxes, tins or jars. The presence of a cat obviously keeps them well hidden, but as they are capable of living entirely in areas which even the cat cannot access, there is not really any option but to lay poison down for them.

We only do this when absolutely necessary and try to target its use efficiently.