November Blues

 It was a lovely morning with clear blue skies and the first hard frost of the late autumn/winter. I went to Brill Windmill to see if any vis mig going on but just a few Chaffinches and Redwings flying around the trees and a small flock of Woodpigeon. 

I didn't bother putting the moth trap out as the temperature dropped so low last night but there was a micro moth in the house which I think is a new one for the Old Vic. 

Spent the last couple of days clearing up the storm damage from the weekend- a re-assessment of the tree damage means we might be able to salvage something of all three trees that were seriously injured through coppicing/ 'collarding' and the Field Maple only lost a major limb so should be able to save that too.   

A Mute Swan flew over the garden this morning, still a couple of Siskin wheezing around, about 15 Long-tailed Tits in the flock and the odd Redwing and Song Thrush. I've only seen a single Fieldfare this whole autumn so looks like they must have noticed all the fuss about global warming too and can't be bothered to fly too far south or west. 

Fungi continue to pop up over the garden- Oyster Mushrooms now added to the list. Hopefully Lee Dingain will be visiting soon to so we can do an autumn/fungi bioblitz. Now on 1020 species for the Old Vic and 484 moths. I doubt we can hit the 500 moth species target by the end of this year. Our Bucks CMR Dave Wilton has had over 640 species this year alone in his garden HERE so there is presumably lots more species for us to find here. I doubt we can ever match 640 species a year as due to working away and spending time on the project sites etc we are not actually here trapping full time. I worked out my moth list recently, its about 690 for Britain and 777 for WP so got a long long way to go which is great! (There are over 2500 moths in UK alone). My WP bird list is 706 and only approx 1000 species to see (of which 308 are vagrants) so realistically could only see 800 without having to put in exponentially increasing effort (which for me takes the enjoyment out of it, which means time to draw the line) . World list is now 2945 (about 10,000 bird species in the world) so that would be a really easy list to add to- my life aim is to see about half of the world's birds (5000) and targeting some key characteristic species/families. 

View over towards the Otmoor Basin from Brill 

The broken sailed windmill, another recent storm casualty 

The garden Buzzard was lucky to not loose it's favourite post- the tallest spot in the garden on the neighbours spruce. 

I'm going for Acrolepia autumnitella on this micro flying around the house. Awaiting confirmation. (Yes it is! Nice, I actually used a key to work this out which for first time in my life actually worked- thanks Dave)  

Feathered Thorn from a couple of days ago 

The carbon negative feed back continues- trees blow down, then burnt all releasing more carbon that creates more warming, more storms, more trees blown down etc. We kept the logs for burning for heating the house which I guess saves burning fossil fuels but still had to have a fire to clear away some of the brash wood for emergency access- couldn't get a chipper here until a few weeks time so we've left the rest to chip later, so did our best to reduce burning as much as possible. Will need to offset this somehow now- will need to think about planting more trees in the garden or on the project sites. Really need to get on with our Ghana project once travel restrictions permit as if we can purchase some rainforest we should be able to start getting some really high positive carbon and biodiversity figures. Presumably all the trees we save and maintain and the planting we do through Little Oak Tree and Garden Care and the campaigning work on the farmlands (a 400 acre wetland/grassland)  and our projects creating/supporting birding communities as alternative to consumer communities, plus our private land purchases and consumer choices (family budget on local, eco-friendly business as much as possible) we must be on the right track to be carbon and biodiversity positive but it would be interesting to have more precise measurements on it. In this grey and transitional world what must also be factored in is what would happen if we didn't exist and the only options consumers had was slash and burn tree surgeons/garden and astroturf and block paving companies (this is a major trend in gardens). The counterfactual consideration would definitely put us into a major carbon positive position. Even though the real COP26 might be a load of bollocks, it doesn't stop anyone who is genuinely interested in nature to use this next two weeks to think about more changes they can make in their own businesses, garden, land, consumer choices or investments- that's what we intend to do and with autumn migration nearly over now , it's time to get on with stuff.