Short Notes                                                               Spring 2003

Archive: Walling the Cuckoo in the Field

(from Notes and Queries, 17th December 1892)

‘The inhabitants of sequestered Borrowdale in Cumberland were at one time credited with being exceedingly primitive. Writing on the ideas said to have been entertained by these innocent people, Harriet Martineau, in her Guide to the English Lakes, among other stories of their credulity, relates the following:

Spring being very charming in Borrowdale, and the sound of the Cuckoo gladsome, the people determined to build a wall to keep in the Cuckoo, and make the spring last forever. So they built a wall across the entrance at Grange. The plan did not answer; but that was, according to popular belief from generation to generation, because the wall was not built one course higher. It is simply for want of a top course in that wall that eternal spring does not reign in Borrowdale.’

(Dave Shackleton)

 Mountaintop Snow Buntings

Margaret and I counted at least 75 Snow Buntings in a single loose mobile flock on the summit plateau of Cross Fell on 15th February. In past winters we have seen this species high on Cross Fell, but always in tiny numbers.

Since the fell sheep were culled through foot-and-mouth disease in the spring of 2001, there has been an almost complete lack of grazing over the Cross Fell range for two seasons. In response there has been a very remarkable resurgence of vegetation, even on the summits. Relevantly, the grass, sedge and rush species of the plateau fruited vigorously in 2002, whereas in previous years it was rare to find fruiting stems.  (The remarkable floral display of last summer is catalogued in the latest issue (Vol. 10: 2) of The Carlisle Naturalist.)

Although I could not discern what the birds were feeding upon, it is tempting to speculate that the number of Snow Buntings choosing to winter in such an inhospitable location may be another response of the vastly better growth of vegetation on the Cross Fell range.

Jeremy Roberts 

Flycatching Waxwings

Whilst passing through Keswick on 24th February, I stopped off in the main car-park to enjoy the Waxwings.

It was a delightful bright, calm and almost warmish day, and to my surprise the eight Waxwings in view were not indulging in their usual winter behaviour (alternating bouts of guzzling berries, often from low Berberis and Cotoneaster bushes, and then in flocks in the tree tops digesting, while voiding the stones and seeds with astonishing frequency).

The birds were scattered around the top of a huge beech tree above the car-park, and in garden trees up on the ridge above, and busily flycatching! Presumably insect prey had been brought out by the rise in temperature.

This was most interesting to see! – I had never seen this species of Waxwing (ie. Bohemian) flycatching before, although I know this is their normal mode of nutrition in summer. In fact the mode of flycatching is exactly like that of the Cedar Waxwing, which I have seen in summer in North America. Heedless of all the berry-laden Cotoneasters and Rowans around the place, they perched on the tops of the trees, peering about in the sunshine, intermittently swooping off and back in level looping flights, although I could never see the items of food being caught.

Jeremy Roberts