Field Notes: Nesting instinct

Our Head of Land Mike Daniels observes the ‘ultimate lockdown’ in the heart of the Cairngorms

Covid-19 restrictions have reduced the home range size of most of the land team dramatically over the last few months. For some of us, the silver lining is that it has allowed the opportunity to study wildlife in our environs in more depth than time would normally allow. The reduction in human activity and traffic noise has increased the boldness of animals and the apparent volume of birdsong. In parallel with the rest of the world – with reports of goats in the gardens of Llandudno and coyotes on the streets of San Francisco – wildlife is getting a chance to come out from our shadow and take central stage.

For those of us home working, nesting birds are providing an excellent distraction from the pandemic – and my family and I are observing a range of bird species as they go through the annual drama of their nesting attempts.

Watching the birds as they settle on eggs, it is hard not to empathise and draw parallels with our current situation. In a behavioural pattern going back over 100 million years, incubation is the ultimate lockdown – with birds confined to their nests for many weeks, while social distancing is reinforced by fierce territorial behaviour.

In the case of golden eagles the female (who does 80 per cent of the incubation) must spend up to 45 days confined on the nest for 23 hours – with a brief foray for her ‘daily exercise’. Her compensation, at least, is that her outlook is always a fantastic view over a panorama of wild land. But for a bird used to soaring over thousands of hectares, being restricted to a few metres for a month and a half is a major imposition on her freedom, which we can all acutely relate to.

Perhaps the bird most synonymous with this time of year is the cuckoo, which with us arrived a few days ago - right on cue – on 27 April. We tend to think of the cuckoo as ‘our’ spring totem, but in reality the cuckoo is an African bird which graces us with its presence as a summer tourist for only three or four months of the year. Notoriously it takes a unique approach to the restrictions of nesting – it doesn’t bother. Instead, in one of the most amazing facets of the natural world, it sneaks its perfectly camouflaged eggs into the nest of its unsuspecting host – with us usually a meadow pipit.

Yet despite this ingenious maverick strategy, cuckoo populations have been falling dramatically across the UK, suffering a decline of 75 per cent in the last 25 years, and in many places in England they have disappeared completely. The reasons for their demise are many and complex, but ultimately all related to our behaviour: our consumption; our emissions; our insatiable demands on the planet.

Perhaps, when we come out of the pandemic, amidst the terrible toll and devastation to our way of life, the silver lining will be an increased appreciation of all that is wild on our doorstep and a reminder that we need to respect and protect wild land and wild nature.