Keeping quiet

Posted by Martin Garwood March 21, 2021

Keeping quiet

These Covid days have meant a significant reduction in the noise from air traffic heading out of Gatwick and Heathrow and recent high pressure over the UK has produced calm, settled weather. As a result Crow Wood has been unusually quiet this week and it's been ideal for just listening to the ambient sounds. The distant croak of a pair of Ravens has now become a regular feature of my visits there. They are great vocalists and when flying over often give a call like the deep bark of a dog, which can be picked up at some distance away. When the sun does come out and the earth warms up sufficiently two, three and often four buzzards are tempted by growing thermals and take to the sky above the wood, their plaintive calls can be heard even when the birds themselves are out of sight. At this time of the year they are pairing up with the males engaging in display flights to impress any potential audience. They soar up to great height fold their wings back and stoop down and up again at speed in a wide loop, often calling all the time.

Less noisy are the groups of Redwings still around. These small thrushes breed in Scandinavia, visiting us just for the winter months. They form small flocks at this time of the year, feeding up ready to head off north, keeping up whistle-like and flutey contact calls as the move through the trees. They are a species that migrate at night and I expect the thirty or so I saw this week to have moved off unseen by my next visit.

Redwings moving through the wood

Great Spotted Woodpeckers are getting noisy at this time, with males in competition for females and producing lots of loud chatter. This is also the best time to hear them drumming. All three UK species of woodpecker are present in the wood with Great Spotted by far the commonest, with several pairs nesting here. Green Woodpeckers are heard most days too, tending to stick to the woodland edges as they like to feed in the surrounding fields. We are very lucky that the wood still provides suitable habitat for the diminutive Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. These are tiny birds, about Sparrow size, and sadly very hard to find these days - recent estimates suggest that there may be just 150 to 200 pairs in the whole of Kent. Their numbers are in freefall across the UK. They are one of my most favourite birds but devils to find and once trees are in leaf they are almost impossible. So hearing a male calling from the very top of a chestnut tree and finding it this week was a thrill indeed. My hope is that there is still a pair or even two breeding quietly somewhere in the 250 acres of Old Park Wood.

A lesser Spotted Woodpecker in a distant tree top, if it had not called I would never have spotted it

(much enlarged, you can just make out the red forehead of this male)

The cooler temperatures have slowed the arrival of Spring but the first of our many Primroses along the grassy ride are starting to flower. In spite of the weather, the "greening' continues relentlessly with Bluebells, nettles and Lords and Ladies pushing through, and our few Snowflake plants celebrating the end of winter once again. Its all happening - the wood will look different every trip I take over there.