Welcome To The Kingfisher Wildlife Diaries – John Bailey
January 1st 2010
Frozen Winters
Well, global warming might be a given but this holiday period has certainly reminded us all of the harsh winters in the past. Indeed, as one of my pals said, if it weren't for global warming we'd have all frozen to death this Christmas!
I remember well one of the most terrifying winters up on the North Norfolk coast when I was just a kid. Even then, I was fascinated by fishing and by wildlife both and it was pitiful in the weeks and weeks of sub-zero temperatures to watch the effect of the cold on the birds of the surrounding marshes.
Small waders became so weak that they were easy prey for the hooded crows and gulls. Brent geese became completely fearless and as the marshes remained frozen, most of the moorhens began to die of hunger. Bitterns and herons perished and water rails were amongst the first to succumb to the cold - fifteen were found dead where the river entered the sea. Amongst the reeds water rails were seen attacking starving dunlin and even feeding on the corpse of a coypu - animals that were quite common in those days. Wrens were frozen to death on the very coldest of nights and only those that huddled together in large numbers survived. Forty wrens roosted in a single nesting box in the wood near my parents' house.
The gardens in the village were invaded by a huge number of redwings, fieldfares and blackbirds. Many of them existed on spoiled apples left over from what had been a bumper harvest the previous autumn. A kestrel was seen attacking a woodcock in flight and a water rail which had swooned in a coma was found to have its belly feathers encased in ice. The bird was thawed out and fed on worms. One of the keepers found three half-starved bitterns which he cared for in a pen feeding them mainly on sprats. He saw a dying mute swan killed and devoured by a fox. He also spread hundred weights of apples in his garden and kept alive blackbirds, song thrushes, fieldfares, redwings, bramblings and tits.
As I write, the thaw is well underway and it looks like our birdlife is not going to suffer like it did all those years ago. Let's hope not.