Last year’s RSPB Christmas cracker gave me the following “joke”: When should you buy a bird? When it is going cheep! Well, I hope that has got you into the spirit of Christmas!
2023 was a “Waxwing winter” when many thousands flew in from Scandinavia, rather than the usual few hundred. This unusual migration is called an “irruption” (sic). You will probably see them feeding on Cotoneaster or Rowan berries and may be alerted to their presence by the sound of their trilling call. But they are absolutely and unmistakenly beautiful: somewhere between a sparrow and a blackbird in size, they are “pinky-buff and crested” (how the British Trust for Ornithology puts it) with the crest being the bird’s most striking feature. The name, Waxwing, comes from bright red and yellow spots on their wing, whilst in Germany, they are known as “silk tails” for the delicate yellow band spun across their tail feathers. The Latin name for Waxwing is, wonderfully, Bombycilla garrulus, as Bombycilla comes from the Greek, Bombyx, for silk. And Garrulus? Certainly, listening to their call on the Chirp app makes them sound very chatty! And fearless. You can approach them closer than you think you should. I have never, ever seen a Waxwing (top lip trembles). Perhaps this winter will treat me. Last year they were seen on the crab apple in Knutsford Road and they were also observed at one of the car parks at Addenbrooke’s hospital.
You may well see a Blackcap on your feeder, unusually for a migrant Warbler. Known as the Northern Nightingale (though silent now), but in Yorkshire as the Coal-Hoodie, their song in Spring is fast and melodious, though with the odd scratchy note thrown in. But the ones we see now are not our overwintering Blackcaps, left over from the summer (ours are on a cushy billet in North Africa). These are different birds that arrive in from South and Central Europe and they have evolved a different migration route and will return to their breeding grounds in Spring. These birds, apparently, seem to be developing a different taxonomy, with longer bills and more rounded wing tips than “ours”. Their diet turns from insects to fruit in winter and then, when the natural berries have all been hoovered by the Waxwings and Redwings, to the sunflower hearts we put out. They can be quite aggressive on their feeding station and will chase off other birds.
In December and early January, you can walk down to the reedbed below Wimpole Hall, south of A603, at 3.30 in the afternoon and over the next 30 minutes you may see hundreds of starlings murmurating, like watching whisps of black smoke with the film spool reversed. Instead of the smoke being blown apart and dissipating, the wisps are blown together as the birds fly in from the surrounding countryside in tens and twenties, then forming larger and larger clouds, which will settle eventually in the reed bed.
From looking skywards, now cast your gaze downwards. Mosses are at their best in January because of all the moisture in the air. They can hold a huge amount of water and thereby create their own humid microclimate where they grow. Woodlice and slugs like to hide beneath it, and Blackbirds like to scuff it all up in their hunt for food, but moss is also home to microscopic creatures with names straight out of Doctor Who, like rotifers, tardigrades and nematodes.
Tardigrades are often referred to either as “Moss Piglets” or “Water Bears” because they look like little bears with eight puffy legs, with little claws, and two eyes, a nose and a mouth! If you have a microscope at home, collect a pinch of moss from your garden in a paper bag or envelope. Bring it in and place some in a clear plastic container, such as the lid from a food container. Put enough water in it for your scrap of moss to be suspended and leave overnight. The following day, on your microscope’s lowest magnification, hunt for your tardigrades, which are not fast movers, hence their name, which means slow walkers! I have learned that tardigrades can live for a hundred years, withstand extreme heat and cold, and you can find them everywhere. They protect themselves by going into a type of hibernation called cryptobiosis. They roll up into a dried little ball, and just stay dormant, with no sign of life until they are wetted. Scientists have rehydrated them from a piece of moss in a museum collection that was a hundred years old. They’ve been frozen and defrosted, put under pressure, subjected to very high temperatures and survived.
One of Britain’s most common species of moss is the Swan neck thyme moss. Dull green mats of moss send up reddish filaments (the swan neck) with pale green spore capsules on the end (if female) or open “stars” on their ends (if male). There is also the Common Haircap to be found along streams, which grow quite tall and looks like a million miniature pine trees! Common Tamarisk moss is ubiquitous with its thick mats of dark green “tripinnate” branches, arranged, more or less, on the same plane. And then there is Sphagnum moss, from which peat is made, which is both enormously absorbent and has antiseptic properties. It was used instead of nappies and as wound dressings. It really is worth getting down on one’s hands and knees (if you can) to take closer look, or if you have a microscope, squeeze water out of a clump of moss and you will find it alive.
The Christmas calendar used to start with fasting from 1st to the 24th December, followed by the twelve days of celebrations, feasting and jollity. On the Twelfth Night (5th January), you must go a-wassailing. The tradition in the West Country is to sing to your apple trees to bid them good health and scare away the evil spirits, ensuring a productive apple harvest come next autumn. (There is also the house-visiting wassailing where you go door to door, singing and offering a drink from your wassail bowl. This has largely been replaced by carol singers!) The Twelfth Night is also Epiphany Eve, the night before the feast day celebrating the Three Magi’s visit to the Christ child. The second Sunday after Epiphany is Plough Sunday, when the plough is blessed in front of the congregation (with prayers for a fruitful crop growing year) and the following Monday is called Plough Monday, which marks the end of the festivities (the plough was dragged from house to house in a pageant, with much singing and drinking… again) and the beginning of the agricultural year… the celebrations are over, so now back to your fields! Plough Sunday (12th January) is one book-end to twin with Harvest Festival, thanking God for the fruits of the year’s labours (which will be on 6th October in 2025).
Mid January the Hazel catkins are an inch or more long, the Silver birch catkins too are showing and the “black” (dark chestnut brown in reality) buds of the Ash have taken on a greenish hue. Hunt for your signs of Spring whenever you are out. They lift the heart.
In midwinter, if you have binoculars, you can see the Great Orion Nebula which sits just below Orion’s belt (three stars in a line at an angle). Also the Andromeda Galaxy, a barred spiral galaxy and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way (it is twice the size of our Milky Way). It is some 2.5 million light years away but can be seen through binocs if you look at the Andromeda constellation. The free App, Stellarium helps you find these constellations with the greatest of ease.
The December Full Moon is the Cold Moon and is on 15th, the day after the peak of the Geminid meteor shower (look to the constellation of Gemini), with the Ursid meteor shower at its peak on 22nd December (look to Ursa Minor, where the North Star lies). The January Wolf Moon is on 13th .
Wishing you a happy Christmas and a healthy and successful 2025,
Perry Littleboy