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You
can help them make it through the night The recent bitter weather has brought flocks of hungry birds to our garden feeders. During the shortening hours of daylight they have to eat enough to sustain them through the long, bitterly cold nights, so any help we can give them is really important, and the rewards are worth the trouble - the brilliant vermilion of a cock bullfinch, and the flurry of yellow, red, black and white as a party of goldfinches find the seed-feeder, certainly brighten up the winter garden. As I write this, snow is forecast for more easterly regions but intense frosts can give fields and lawns an almost snowy surface. So much so, indeed, that friends in the WNS reported badger tracks across their lawn, clearly identifiable in the thick hoar frost. Badger tracks are some of the easiest to recognise - their front paws leaving big, roundish prints, a central pad surrounded by all five toe pads in a horse-shoe arrangement, sometimes fringed by the marks of those long claws, so superbly adapted to digging. So, as it seems likely that we shall have more snow and heavy frosts, keep a lookout in the gardens or along the edges of suburban roads for evidence of their nocturnal foraging. Badgers are active throughout the winter though they lay down enough fat during the autumn to enable them to stay underground for a few days if the weather's really bad. Other animals - like the birds - have to keep up a continuous search for food if they are to survive. Another fellow naturalist told a lovely story of a recent encounter with one of these. She was out with her walking group on the moor above Bingley. The party stopped for lunch and, seeking a backrest, she chose to eat her sandwiches leaning against a wall near where the track crossed a stream by means of three well-spaced stepping stones. As she sat quietly she became aware of sudden movement in the bracken to one side. Then a tiny brown form darted out, scanning the scene and popped back. Only about six or seven inches long, with white front and bright, beady eyes, it was unmistakable - a weasel. The scenario was repeated four or five times and each time the animal appeared from a different spot. It obviously was anxious to cross the stream but wary of the human watcher. You could almost say it was conducting a 'risk analysis'. Its calculations complete, it dashed from cover, crossed the stepping stones in a series of neat leaps and disappeared into a patch of scrub at the far side, no double in pursuit of its own lunch. [Back] |