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RSPB CHE STER GROUP

NEWSLETTER Edition 99 rspb.org.uk/groups/chester facebook.com/RSPBChester August 2020 @RSPBChester ______Yellowhammer – Summer 2020

©Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)

Group Leader’s Spot

By Norman Sadler Dear Members, This is probably the strangest article I have written for your newsletter. But we live in strange times. Your committee has been meeting on Zoom instead of face to face. Updates from The Lodge have been delivered by senior staff via video links. Several of our key contacts in the charity have been and still are, furloughed. For the first time since I retired four years ago, I am booked on a course next week to learn new skills on how to host a webinar. See the later article on what your group is doing to stay in touch. During May and June, I have been getting my socially distanced bird fix by getting up early and going out for the dawn chorus alone. Those that know me probably know that I am not a natural morning person, to the point that our grandson, Robin, calls me Grumpy. However, I have rediscovered the delight in being out at 04:30 to listen to glorious birdsong including blackcap, sedge warbler, chiffchaff, willow warbler, whitethroat, robin, wren etc. Although most of my trips have been very local ( Platts is the favourite), I have also been up to Hill on the Sandstone Trail (where I heard my first cuckoo in years) and the Countess of Park behind the hospital. Quite by chance, I met Joe getting his fix at Hockenhull one morning at 05:00. Joe volunteers with the Wildlife Trust and was also one of our volunteer leaders when your group ran a YOC group some years ago. He was out looking for signs of an otter. They have returned to the now it has been cleaned up from farm runoff. Joe has an infra-red camera film of them there. He asked whether I had heard the Cetti's warbler. Cettis warbler in Waverton? But he must have had one in his back pocket because just as we were catching up, there was the unmistakable explosion of one from the trees behind us. Many years ago, as a teenager learning my birding skills in Kent, there used to be big twitches on to tick Cetti's warbler in Stodmarsh, the large reedbed nearest to France. They were recorded as rare visitors to the South East of . Now we have them in Waverton (On another morning I clocked two individuals at Hockenhull)!. They are also well known now as far north as Leighton Moss. Other unusual sightings were a pair of lapwing with a youngster at a pond close to Hockenhull and a really good view of a barn owl returning from its night of hunting. I have also been enjoying the other end of the day. Being fortunate in having a canal frontage means we get a lot of bats flying over our garden late in the evening. My knowledge of bats is limited and of course, my hearing has now declined so I cannot hear them like I could in my youth. Still, it is no effort to sit outside on a gloriously warm evening, with a glass of wine and try to identify 2 the bat species against the big sky. There are at least two, possibly three, species that are distinguished just by their behaviour. Any bat specialists out there that can bring me up to speed with identification? Hopefully, you have all been enjoying nature a bit more in lockdown and hopefully, nature has done its bit to keep you sane. The Chester Group and the RSPB, in general, appreciate your continued support in these difficult times. Stay Safe. The Membership Secretary’s Report

By Margaret Bain HAVE YOU JOINED YOUR LOCAL GROUP? National RSPB membership does not automatically make you a member of your local group. We must pay our own expenses. Your RSPB Chester Group subscription fee helps to pay our costs, including hall hire, speakers’ fees, printing and postage of newsletters and programmes, etc. Any surplus funds are passed on to the RSPB for use in conservation projects. CHESTER GROUP ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FEES Family / couple £10 Individual £6 Concessionary £5 Membership fees are due in September each year, at the start of our annual season of talks. We are now at the start of the 2020-2021 season and it is time to renew your membership for this year. I have enclosed a renewal form with the newsletter for you to fill in with any changes in your details, especially email. With the present situation, where we need to keep you informed of changes quickly, it is important that you give us your current email address. The fees have not changed and please send the money to me. Under new privacy legislation, we will in future be obliged by law, to remove your details from our database within a few months, if you do not renew your membership. We would then be unable to send you any more renewal reminders, newsletters, or programmes of the trips as well as the speakers at the indoor meeting. If you no longer want to be a member of the group, please could you let me know by emailing me [email protected] Thank you. 3 Broxton Barn Owl Group – BBOG

Due to the COVID-19 virus all events have been cancelled until further notice.

In Memoriam: Mary Prince

By Margaret Bain Sadly, Mary Prince died peacefully on Wednesday, May 27 because her body was no longer able to fight Parkinson’s Disease. Mary was a founder member of our group, as she went to the Queen’s Hotel to hear a discussion about setting up a Chester local members group and joined as soon as it started. Mary asked me to go along for company, as she knew I was interested in birds and from then until very recently she had been an active member coming to both the indoor meetings and field trips. Mary was a big part of my birding life as we learnt to identify birds from our numerous books but the field trips widen our horizons as well as knowledge gained from more experienced members of the group. Mary’s wit and friendship will be missed by many of our group and staff at the Queen’s school where she taught languages for many years. Mary leaves behind Dave her husband Ruth and Mike her children as well as three grandchildren. Coronavirus and Meetings By Norman Sadler Your committee has had lots and varied discussions around how or when we can restart “normal” activities. RSPB has been no different from other membership groups in trying hard to restore business as usual, while keeping people safe. As a group, we are bound to follow the advice and instructions we are getting from central office. Currently, that advice is that we should not hold indoor meetings or field trips before the end of 2020. (See Ian’s considered article regarding field trips). This is obviously a major disappointment but given the current level of government instructions, it is sensible. However, your local group committee is trying to present a semblance of entertainment that we hope as many of you as possible can enjoy. I am sure a few of you are using the internet in ways you did not know existed to stay in touch “face to face” with much-missed family and friends. Your committee has held several meetings on Zoom and we are getting better at that.

4 We are looking to host a webinar with one of our scheduled speakers, or even share with other local groups to get a special guest. We are still trying to work out the best platform for this and I have signed up for a training session on how best to manage such an event. This newsletter is one way we can reach out to our membership but it incurs costs to produce and post. However, there are still several members who are either not on the internet or have declined to allow us to contact them via email. We are committed to continuing to produce this missive. We will soon be asking you to renew your membership, production and distribution of this newsletter is what most of your membership fees fund. However, I would encourage you to let us use your email address for immediate contact. Rest assured, your details are held securely and we do not pass them on to third parties. It would make life simpler though to be able to update everyone on what we are doing if we make plans at short notice. In the meantime, Nick and Helen are doing a wonderful job of keeping our website and social media updated with our plans. If we do host virtual meetings, they will be announced there first. Website: rspb.org.uk/groups/chester Twitter: @RSPBChester Facebook: facebook.com/rspbchester Please stay connected and more importantly, stay safe!

Field trips and Coronavirus By Ian Cameron I write this article in the first week of July – I will let the reader determine if it is ancient history. It has been a very varied year from the trip report side. Firstly, we had adverse weather on three of the 2019 weekends selected for field trips, so they were cancelled. Now we have entered the period of COVID- 19 and all the field trips were cancelled from March 2020. I have spent more time looking at wildlife in my garden and local fields, during the lockdown, than in recent years with some surprises but this may be just the result of more time for observation. Invertebrates have been the highlight for my garden with six ruby tiger moths together on one morning in May and numerous others such as painted ladies, ringlets, peacocks, red admirals and gatekeeper butterflies in the often-warm still weather. Something to remember.

5 Our committee made an early decision not to hold field trips for the rest of 2020. You will see elsewhere in this edition, RSPB HQ has confirmed that both, indoor and outdoor meetings, will not go ahead over this period. A decision about the early months of 2021 will be made later, probably in October. Because we are still learning about the characteristics of this particular type of coronavirus and that we do not know how the disease process will develop over the coming months, it is difficult to plan a new field trip programme for January 2021 onwards. Experience gained over this period will help with final decisions. I moved several trips, expected to take place in early 2020, to similar months in 2021. A few will be transferred to 2021-2022. Some members have already volunteered to Ruby tiger moths ©Ian Cameron lead these trips next year. I have a skeleton list of trips in place and they will be confirmed in the next newsletter. There are several issues we will all have to come to terms with within our RSPB Local Group following the arrival of this virus. As a group, we have relied on car sharing to ease congestion on some sites. Even at the recently proposed 1+ metre rule for social distancing, this does not change the earlier advice of car-sharing being a higher risk. Future visit sites will need suitable space for the proposed increase in cars numbers over the next year and not just from our group. Also, if we are taking more cars, there is then the problem of us all travelling separately for long distances, hardly a "green" activity and unsocial so very long-distance trips have been removed for this next year, such as RSPB St Aidans. Hides are also an issue with a lot of visits often involve some considerable time in one or more. Some establishments will marshal their hides, with limits on the time inside and the number of occupants that can be present at any one time. Queuing to enter hides in the next year may be a necessity, as already introduced on some nature reserves. I have reduced reliance on hides in next year's listings. As a result, I know this may mean some trips will need cancelling at short notice if the weather forecast is poor. Toilets and cafes may also be an issue for full-day trips. Often we need cafes for sustenance or shelter. I will arrange for a risk assessment to be made on the use of such specific facilities nearer the time. 6

To these points can be added to the fact that we are not getting any younger and a substantial number of us are more vulnerable to the effects of this virus disease process if we were to get infected. This is in my mind when compiling the outings. Under normal circumstances, all the outside periods of birding should be of lower risk. If you get the offer of a winter flu vaccine from your doctor, I advise you to take it up to reduce the risk of getting another respiratory virus infection. If an effective COVID-19 vaccine is produced and administered, over the coming months and/or there are continued reports of improved treatment regimens, it would likely change all our opinions on the risks involved. We live in hope. Later in the year, risk assessments will be undertaken on the venues selected in the light of the national disease status at that time and any local spike outbreaks, as well as considering the current RSPB HQ advice. As said already, the trip listing will be finalised by the time of the next newsletter and will be fully published on the website as well. Make sure we have your up to date contact details (including any email address you may have) and please consult the website regularly for changes 7 to the programme - always very possible going forward in these uncertain times. I am going to try and include in the programme a local early morning Dawn Chorus trip in May 2021 followed by breakfast along the lines of the popular one that was arranged a few years ago. Something for you all to look forward to over the coming months. Enjoy the rest of 2020! Lockdown Bird Walks By Colin Bain Margaret and I moved to a new house a year and a half ago to Upton Dene a development of new houses on the northern edge of the Countess of Chester hospital site. Our daily exercise walks cover the Countess of Chester Country Park, the former Mollington Golf Club site and a triangle of land bounded by the Chester Wirral railway and the Shropshire Union Canal. All these three areas are within a 10-minute walk of our house and there are many routes possible. We soon realised that the former golf course was a great area for birds. This is because nature has been allowed to develop its own way and there are at least eight lakes/ponds and some of them are large. Here you can see (and especially hear!) the mating calls of the sedge warbler in the long reeds and the high-pitched accelerated rattle of a grasshopper warbler. Graylag geese can also be seen on one of the larger ponds and Margaret spotted a goldcrest in the bushes. The old fairways are now covered with thick tall grass with many flowers including Reed bed ©Colin Bain cowslips and orchids and these have encouraged a variety of butterflies. These include peacock, small tortoiseshell, meadow brown, orange tip and large white. A friend of ours gave us a clipping from the Guardian Country Diary on the 15th May 2020 on the abandoned golf course at Mollington. They noted the reverting to nature with fairways full of flowers and the panoramic views at the highest point where the Sandstone Ridge and the Welsh mountains can be seen as well as the network of paths which once served the buggies and trolleys of golfers. 8 Bird Quiz By Liz McClure

Answers on Page 19 9 Get to know your own patch Yvonne and Tony Due to COVID-19 lockdown, we are spending more time at home. Fortunately, we have a medium size and well-established garden with plenty of birds visiting our variety of feeders. It has been good to see numerous greenfinches after the low numbers of the last two years. We never do an early cut back of the herbaceous plant's old seed heads as the goldfinches much prefer these seeds to any purchased feeder food. Early April is a busy nesting time and it is quite noticeable that the birds have paired up and gathering nesting material. To date, in and around our garden, we have dunnocks, blackbirds, wrens, blue tits and great tits now incubating their eggs. In the large conifers in the cemetery behind us, the pigeons are bringing in large twigs. In the centre of our garden, we have a birdbath, about a metre off the ground and at this time of year, it is constantly used for drinking and bathing. The bath sometimes needs topping up three times a day! We would say that, from our experience, a shallow birdbath can attract as many birds into the garden as do feeders. Unfortunately, we now get frequent visits from crows, jackdaws and rooks which often crowd out the small birds. At least once a week we spot the sparrowhawk making a speedy fly- through and maybe a couple of times a year it does take a blue tit. But we accept that this is all part of nature's food chain.

The mild and wet winter did nothing to Wren ©Nick Carey reduce the number of slugs in the garden but these are the perfect food for our early emerging hedgehog. We had a family of five last year. From our home in , we can take lovely countryside walks in every direction. The old trees along the nearby cycle track are alive with the sound of chiffchaffs, a very welcome song at this time of year. On 07 April, we walked to Barrow and on the set-aside field, the skylarks' songs could be heard all around. Greylag geese honked in the meadow beyond and buzzards circled above. At this time of year, we normally hear yellowhammers in the mature hawthorn hedges which border this footpath but none so far. No cuckoos either.

10 We came back along the A51 and stopped on the bridge over the River Gowy where we were delighted to spot a pair of mandarin ducks. Two days later, 09 April, we walked along the River Gowy to and at the farm, before the church, we spotted our first swallow of the year. A wonderful sign of hope in these challenging times. Also, a warbler which we could not identify and then the blue flash of a jay in the aged trees along the path. Our dear friend Keith Offord has always said 'Get to know your own patch'. What better time than now to do this

Our Australian Odyssey By Brian and Jean Gresty On Tuesday, February 25, 2020 my wife Jean and I boarded an Emirates Airbus 380 bound for Dubai to begin our journey to Adelaide to attend a family wedding. COVID-19 was just featured in the news but regarded as a “Chinese problem”, we were not concerned and soon flew out of Manchester to Dubai. In Dubai, our temperatures got checked and again when we landed at Changi airport. We were more re-assured than alarmed by all this. After three days in Singapore we left for Adelaide via Melbourne. Changi airport had repeated banks of automated body temperature scanners, linked to facial recognition cameras. No health checks were carried out in Melbourne or Adelaide. We exited Adelaide airport for a joyous reunion with my brother John and wife Heather. My brother lives at West Lakes, on

Dephin Island about 14 miles from Rainbow lorikeet by pen ash from Adelaide. The developer planted Pixabay thousands of native flowering shrubs and trees, interspersed with many fruit- producing palm-like trees. Some 45 years later, there is plenty of dense foliage for nesting in and with a year-round supply of freshwater the area draws in native Australian birds in huge numbers.

11 March is autumn time “down-under” so at 7 am dawn was breaking when I took a walk via a 3-mile loop. It was certainly not the quiet and peaceful stroll you might expect. Being the only human about I was disturbing huge feeding flocks of rainbow lorikeets, Adelaide rosella parakeets, cockatoos, etc. too numerous to list or more likely because I did not recognise them. They loudly screamed and screeched in my face, dive-bombed me, flew at my head, bombarded me with droppings and bits off the trees. It was WONDERFUL, an experience repeated each morning and one I shall never forget. Around a tidal inlet I would see pelicans, cormorants and other divers, ducks, black swans, gulls, terns and waders I did not recognise. Swallows, swifts(?) martins, accompanied by other insect feeders hunting just above the waters of the tidal inlet. Eventually COVID-19 caught up with us, our confirmed flight, from Adelaide to Manchester, on March 26 was cancelled. The Foreign Office ordered us home but there were no alternative flights. UK flights departed from Sydney and Melbourne but the flights from Adelaide were not reliable. Crossing a state border means 14 days of quarantine. Therefore, missing a connection at Melbourne would require quarantine as would then returning to my brother’s home. We eventually got a Qatar Airlines flight on May 07 from Adelaide to Manchester via Doha. It cost us a lot of money but the flight was safe and well organised. We were astounded to see all those flags out for our return home on May 08, VE day. We came through Manchester Airport without any inspections and were not provided with any information as to what to do on our arrival in the UK. Voluntarily, Jean and I went into a 14-day quarantine period, made possible by generous help from family, friends and neighbours. Despite all this our time in Australia, spent with our Aussie family and experiencing life there for this short and troubled period was rather good. Lockdown Mysteries

By John Dawson I have an ordinary lawn in front of my house but during lockdown, some strange things have been happening on it. Firstly, I watched a greater spotted woodpecker pecking up bugs or seeds and feeding her fledgling on the lawn rather than in the surrounding trees. Not

12 unusual for a green woodpecker but rare for a greater spotted to feed on the ground. This I put down to the confidence inspired in both by the silhouette of a kookaburra on the nearby cherry tree. (It was a present from my daughter who lives in Melbourne.) Though technically not of the same genus I presume they saw it as a distant relative. The second event was the arrival of the Triffids. Well, not exactly! They were fungi called bolete. I do get them in the autumn but never in the summer. But the most impressive feature was the speed of their arrival. Nothing one day and then a full-grown crop on the next. I decided not to test to see if they were edible. The final happening was the appearance of several holes in the Bolete ©John Dawson lawn. About one and a half inches in diameter but then they go down for about 10 inches on the diagonal. I poked down one with a stick but there was no one at home. I have no idea what made them. It could not have been a squirrel; they just scrabble for their nuts. I have had field voles but they made indentations in the edge of the lawns by a flower bed. Readers’ suggestions welcomed.

Bird Quiz #2 By Yvonne Kirk 1. Who killed Cock Robin? 11. Out of breath. 2. A budding celebrity. 12. Don’t be greedy. 3. Our first postmen. 13. You so this with a hooter. 4. I know the way to go home. 14. I sang in Berkeley Square. 5. Four and twenty in a pie. 15. Dick Whittington did this. 6. An evil-eyed show off. 16. Follows I. 7. A nautical lady. 17. Used in baking. 8. Found in Swiss clocks. 18. Victor Meldrew does this. 9. I’m fast. 19. Royal angler. 10. A fast train. 20. A bit of a tease. Answers on Page 19

13 Captain Beaky By Norman Sadler One of our regular garden visitors over lockdown has been this jackdaw, that we have named “Captain Beaky”. (If you can remember Keith Michell’s unlikely 70s hit record of that name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Beaky_and_His_Band ). If you look closely, you can see that he (we are assuming it is a male) is missing the top half of his beak. For feeding, he has developed a style of using the bottom half of his beak as a scoop in the seed dispenser, then tilting his head back to swallow the seed. This, of course, makes him a messy eater but at least the ducks are grateful as they hoover up the spilt grain under the feeder. Apologies for the quality of the picture but if you look again, you can also see he is looking very scruffy. Then you realise he cannot preen and remove the outer sheaths from his new flight and tail feathers. As he has survived this long (months to our Captain Beaky ©Norman Sadler knowledge), potentially it is going to be the difficulty in moulting and preening that will finish him off, not the lack of food. Just remember how important that beak is to a bird. Whether it’s pictures of puffins carrying eight sand eels back to their burrow, or gannets annually renewing their pair bonds by bill clapping, or woodpeckers using theirs as a chisel to excavate a nest hole, or long tailed tits weaving spiders webs into their glorious expanding nest ball, this piece of cutlery is probably more useful to a bird than a Swiss Army Knife. Captain Beaky has given us a lot of pleasure over his fight with his severe disability. We wish him well.

Spring Day by Day By Brian Webster The travel restrictions of 2020 have caused us all to concentrate our attention on areas closer to home.

14 What started by making me feel frustrated gradually developed into a deepening interest for nature on my doorstep. We have a medium-sized garden and an adjacent field of which we are one of the owners. The combination of these two areas, plus the exceptional spring weather, has offered plenty of opportunities to study the changing seasons almost on a day to day basis. In mid-March, the snowdrops and crocus had disappeared from the garden with tulips and late daffodils giving some colour. In the field, dandelions attracted bumble bees but not butterflies. The speckled wood and peacock butterflies were dull and ragged, suggesting they had overwintered. Cuckoo flowers bloomed in the field in readiness for the orange-tip butterflies that were present throughout April and most of May. Birds responded to the fine weather with increased song, ranging from the trilling melody of the wren to the monotonous call of the chiffchaff. Blackcaps seemed to be in larger numbers this year and the garden bird boxes became home for Speckled Wood ©Brian Webster great and blue tits. As the year moved on, the field’s cuckoo flowers dramatically increased as did the numbers of insects. I began to see green-veined whites, small whites and a few commas. In sheltered spots, the first damselflies made an appearance, mainly common bluetails and common bluets. Despite the wonderful weather, I didn’t see any hirundines until the second week of May and it was the beginning of June before I spotted the first swifts. With June came an eruption in butterfly numbers, especially meadow browns with their habit of flying close to the ground and between taller grass stalks; there was also a sudden increase in skipper numbers especially small skipper. For the last two or three years, the local gardens have been the scrounging grounds for two cock pheasants and we have often speculated on the future for these two birds, well I may have accidentally found the answer to that question because on a recent stroll around the field, through grass that is up to three feet tall in places, a female pheasant with at least six chicks exploded from just in front of me and birds disappeared in all directions. The second week of June produced my first dragonfly of the year a broad- bodied chaser. A juvenile great spotted woodpecker is currently frequenting the garden and tries to be a bit of a bull boy with other species, even those larger than itself. In the field, the cuckoo flowers have all disappeared, only the 15 final few dandelion seed heads remain but we now see the flowers of clover, yarrow, blackberry and the odd patch of ragwort. What started as a somewhat frustrating time turned into an interesting and instructive period. And the chiffchaff is still singing! On my Feeder By Tim Carley Sometimes, I am accused of spending more money on the birds than I do on my wife but every so often, the birds can give you a big reward. We live in Handbridge, down Eaton Road beyond the college. We are therefore quite close to the river and the woods on Dukes Drive. We get all the usual suspects on the nuts and seeds and have been visited daily by great spotted woodpeckers (GSW) for many years. At this time of the year we get male, female and juvenile, sometimes at the same time. Earlier this year, we got four GSWs in the garden at the same time and later two green woodpeckers eating ants in the lawn. That is a very rare Jays ©Tim Carley occurrence. But this week, (w/c 5th July) I had three jays, one adult and two juveniles – I think. They have continued to visit several times a day but not three at once on the feeder pole. As I write, a juvenile jay is waiting for a GSW to finish on the nuts. Lockdown Local Rambles By Richard Sayle Among the frustrations, fear and grief of lockdown have been some welcome gains. Most notably, the chance to get closer to local nature which itself may be reaping the rewards of less interference. Far fewer cars mean reduced pollution and glorious quiet to hear birdsong and use all senses to indulge in the delights of the natural world. Plus to appreciate what is right under our noses. People and nature benefiting together……

16 This is one of four rambles, the remaining three will be in the December issue of the newsletter. RAMBLE ONE - Shropshire Union Canal at Waverton The rewards of the Shropshire Union Canal at Waverton just beyond the village itself from the first bridge to the second towards Huxley after Eggbridge are numerous. It is not long but walking it could take quite a while if you pause to take it all in. During March, early in lockdown, crossing two large fields a flock of chattering linnets were burbling - until the plough arrived planting in bulk and driving them away. Here, there is a long hedgerow and trees squeezed between the fields and the manicured golf course. In that tiny space, birds and butterflies overflowed. It got me to consider: how wonderful is it how Nature that can make so much use of so little? Or, to think of what it could achieve if it were given more opportunity? The first bridge was a fine spot for butterflies. Several speckled wood and once, a beautiful holly blue posed calmly for my camera. In the same place and above a chiffchaff places Holly Blue ©Richard Sayle itself every year. Between the bridges, there are probably seven chiffchaff territories, all singing loudly and cheerfully for a mate. The humble chiffchaff, a plain looker but whose appearance and song are the true and welcome signs of the real start of spring. Here too, many goldfinches trill their range of music. Early in lockdown, a homeless man pitched a tent hereabouts and told me that owls can be heard at night. Best of all, maybe five or six blackcaps perform their utmost to fulfil the billing of the “Northern Nightingale.” Their music is fruity and mellow burbling along delightfully with a percussive accompaniment of odd clicks and rasps. Annoyingly, they are rarely observed clearly, preferring the dense safety of the brambles and undergrowth. At the second bridge, there seems to be a blackcap territory annually but to gain more than a glimpse would make one incredibly lucky. More familiar sights are of course those of moorhens with fledglings hiding in the canal-side reeds and weeds while mallard ducklings sometimes whirr along like clockwork fluff balls. 17 UNDER ONE ROOF Mortgage + Life Insurance + Conveyancing + Wills

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01244 356 789 Your home may be repossessed www.cullimoredutton.co.uk if you do not keep up repayments on a [email protected] mortgage or other loan secured on it. *terms and conditions apply, visit www.cullimoredutton.co.uk/under-one-roof for details My top count this year is no fewer than 15 chicks! More dramatic is the time when a small group of sinister marauding males try to attack a female with chicks; she defends her offspring courageously and with no little desperation. Finally - and thankfully - she is successful. In the same place, overwintering butterflies appear, including a delicately patterned orange tip. Further on, if you know the path, there is a strange, secret clearing in the middle of a wood where other butterflies grasp the silence - commas, various whites and one or two brimstones. On one occasion by the second bridge, a floating patch of vegetation was being used by many common blue damselflies to mate and lay eggs. The only disappointment was perhaps the no show of the kingfisher after the first few weeks. It almost flew into me on the first bridge once, swerving at the last moment. But… all this within a few hundred yards!?

Yvonne’s quiz answers 1. Sparrow 2. Starling 3. Robin 4. Pigeon 5. Blackbirds 6. Peacock 7. Wren 8. Cuckoo 9. Swift 10. Mallard 11. Puffin 12. Gannet 13. Pipit 14. Nightingale 15. Tern 16. Jay 17. Stork 18. Grouse 19. Kingfisher 20. Mockingbird Liz’s quiz answers 1. Pheasant 2. Curlew 3. Corn Bunting 4. Nightingale 5. Spoonbill 6. Kittiwake 7. Toucan 8. Kingfisher 9. Nightjar 10. Waxwing 11. Nuthatch 12. Magpie Editor’s Note

If you wish to receive this newsletter electronically then please email the group with your intention. Thanks to all the writers who provided articles for the newsletter. If readers are considering writing something for the newsletter then please contact me, Nick Carey via Tel: 01928 574 502 or [email protected] If you no longer wish to hear from RSPB Chester Local Group, please contact [email protected] confirming your name and address and stating that you wish to unsubscribe from the RSPB Chester Local Group’s communications. For information about personal data use and your rights see: rspb.org.uk/privacypolicy RSPB England is part of the RSPB, the UK’s largest nature conservation charity, inspiring everyone to give nature a home. Together with our partners, we protect threatened birds and wildlife so our towns, coast and countryside will teem with life once again. We also play a leading role in a worldwide partnership of nature conservation organisations. The RSPB is a registered charity: England and Wales no. 207076, Scotland no.SC037654 Any advertisements enclosed with this newsletter are not specifically endorsed by the RSPB or the RSPB Chester Group. 19