Christmas is coming and if it ushers in a big freeze then many of us will be hoping it won’t rival the worst British winter for 200 years in 1962-1963.
I remember the snow starting to fall around teatime on Christmas Day. There was no let up.
Icicles hung four feet long or more from the roofs, cars gave up the ghost, pipes burst in the loft, and the River Mole at Dorking froze over.
Parents hated it. But us kids were delighted and still sledging on the ice sheets in March alongside Box Hill’s sheltered Zig Zag Road.
What we didn’t fully appreciate then was the damage the Arctic blast was doing to our birds. Unable to find food, many died – a fate that had already affected a beautiful but often elusive southern heathland bird whose Surrey population had been completely wiped out in the deep snow of the previous January and December 1961.
We are at the north of the little Dartford Warbler’s range in Britain and its survival has always depended on mild enough weather to ensure it doesn’t freeze to death and can find its mainly arthropod diet of spiders, ants and various other insects.
So I was delighted to read the latest British Birds rare breeding birds report of the species making a rapid recovery from the ‘Beast from the East’ winter storm in 2018. Its numbers in 2022 (2,286 territories) were greater than any year since a national survey in 2006. A nationwide study planned for 2025 should give a fuller picture.
It may come as a relief to know you don’t have to endure an M25 trip to Kent to see a Dartford Warbler. The bird was named after where a pair were first found in Britain – and shot – back in 1773. Strangely, this was not in Dartford but in neighbouring Bexleyheath. ‘Bexleyheath Warbler’ just never caught on.
I reckon ‘Darting Warbler’ would be more accurate because when you do manage to see this slim skulker then expect it to dart out from the gorse, heather, or bracken before quickly disappearing in the vegetation.
Frequently there will be its mate nearby and another chum from a different species in attendance. This is the Stonechat, about which I wrote last month, and together these unlikely twins both benefit from the food the tasty morsels their different foraging techniques reveal.
The Stonechat sits like a sentry from a prominent perch and rises vertically to snatch an insect disturbed in the undergrowth by the busy ‘Dartford.’ If it misses then the long-tailed warbler has a chance to mop up. Flying low, its top-heavy build results in a wobbly, undulating flight as it seems to struggle to stay level.
Close up, this ‘grey job’ is prettier than it first appears. The male is a deep red wine colour underneath with white ‘crumb’ flecks around the throat, yellow legs and a red eye ring, while the female appears more duller overall.
Although they can be hard to see they may be located by their distinctive call, a grunting ‘chrrr’ which in the breeding season is crowned with a variety of soft warbles and a mechanical sounding rattle.
I’m backing the recent habitat management on local heathland to boost their chances in the race to survive.
Conservationists will also be interested to know the work is already proving a winner on racecourses where our coppiced silver birch is being used for fences instead of plastic options.
