“A list of animals … could become tiresome, but it is necessary to grasp the true richness of nature. Think of it as not so much an inventory as a catalogue leading to compelling and interacting stories…”  (Richard Fortey, 2016. The Wood For The Trees. The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood. Collins)

Here is a list of the creatures that have lived in or visited the smallholding in the North-West of Cumbria, where we have lived since 2001.  The house and its curtilage date from 1856. We have about 4.5 acres, with sheep pasture (horse pasture until 2001); Victorian woodland; a beck – arising from at least two springs (‘sources’ on the OS map) at the base of the limestone plateau to the South – which flows through and has been used to create a pond; vegetable and flower gardens; plus lawns (some mown, some not). We have planted native trees to create woodland, scrub and hedges – in 2001 and in 2018; hazels and alder blackthorn in the ‘old wood’ to create an understorey; and wildflower seeds in the open areas of the 2018 wood.

A list, then. To understand the meaning of this list, this catalogue of lives, I work my way down slowly, taking time to allow a picture of each named creature to enter my mind; to hear the subject singing or calling, if that is what it does; to see them en masse, in a shape-shifting murmuration, or flitting through the hawthorns, or dotting the mud at the bottom of the pond.

For theirs are ‘Compelling and interacting stories’ – and I have written their names here so that I will not forget.

BIRDS

Residents

• Blue tit
• Great tit
• Coal tit
• Chaffinch
• Goldfinch
• Greenfinch
• Robin
• Common wren
• Goldcrested wren
• Blackbird
• Songthrush
• Mistle thrush
• Starling (and murmurations, sometimes as many as 3000 birds, in the autumn)
• Dunnock
• House sparrow
• Tree sparrow
• Nuthatch
• Rook (rookery, of ~ 50 nests)
• Carrion crow
• Jackdaw
• Magpie
• Great Spotted Woodpecker
• Pheasant
• Collared dove
• Woodpigeon
• ‘Town’ pigeon
• Mallard (spring & summer, nesting)
  • Visitors
• Longtailed tit
• Bullfinch
• Pied wagtail
• Grey wagtail
• Tree creeper
• Buzzard
• Kestrel
• Sparrowhawk
• Fieldfare (winter)
• Redwing (winter)
• Tawny owl
• Moorhen (see note below)
• Summer visitors
• Chiffchaff
• Blackcap
• Willow warbler
• Garden warbler (very occasional)
• Swallow (but, for the first time since 2001, absent in 2023)
• Spotted flycatcher (visited and nested 2 years running; not 2023)
• Infrequent visitors
• Siskin
• Yellowhammer
• Brambling
• Snipe
• Heron
• A pair of peacocks! (for one morning only)
• Overflying
• Gulls, various (see ‘Gulls dreaming‘)
• Oystercatcher
• Curlew
• House Martin (very few in 2023)
• Swift (not in 2023)
• and, especially in the autumn, flocks of over-wintering pinkfooted and barnacle geese

MAMMALS

• Bank vole
• Field mouse
• Hedgehog
• Mole
• Rabbit (rarely)
• Grey squirrels
• Red squirrel (once)
• Bats – pipistrelle
• 2 white rabbits (appeared one morning but vanished after about 2 weeks)
• Crappy and predatory neighbourhood cats

AQUATIC CREATURES

• Toad (rarely seen)
• Frogs (plus spawn, tadpoles)
• Eel (read more at https://solwayshorewalker.co.uk/2021/12/24/a-solway-small-holding-an-update/
• Gammarid shrimps
• Flatworms
• Pond snails, 2 species
• Whirligig beetles
• Pondskaters
• Diving beetles
• Giant diving beetles (read more at https://solwayshorewalker.co.uk/2023/10/26/a-solway-smallholding-update-2023/
• Mayfly larvae
• Caddisfly larvae
• Stonefly larvae
• Dragonfly larvae (found twice)
• Damselfly adults (rarely)
• Hawker dragonfly adult (very rarely)

BUTTERFLIES

• Brimstone
• Comma
• Green-veined White
• Orangetip
• Painted Lady (occasional)
• Peacock
• Red Admiral
• Speckled Wood
• Small Tortoiseshell
• Large and small Whites
• Wall

MOTHS

• Mullein Moth caterpillars
• Puss Moth caterpillar
• Poplar Hawk caterpillars
• Angle Shades
• Antler
• Barred straw
• Brimstone
• Buff Ermine
• Burnished Brass
• Dark Arches
• Dotmoth
• Early Thorn
• Ermine
• Golden Y
• Heart and Dart
• July Highflier
• Large Yellow Underwing
• Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing
• Light Emerald
• Magpie
• Map-winged Swift
• Miller
• Plain Golden Y
• Poplar Hawk
• Scalloped Oak
• Silverground Carpet
• Silver Y
• Snout
• Spectacle
• Swallowtail
• V Pug
• Wainscot Dusky
• Yellowtail
• … and many more which I haven’t attempted to identify

MISCELLANEOUS INSECTS (mentioning just a few)

• Sawfly larvae, species undetermined, on Poplar and Solomon’s Seal and gooseberry bush
• Several species of Bumblebee
• Great Wood Wasps
• small grasshoppers (species undetermined)

Note: very few honey bees during the past few years; and at one time we had Leaf-cutter Bees (which enjoyed cutting the tender Amelanchier leaves) and Tree Bees.

As for plants, it is true that ‘if you provide the right conditions, they will come’: cuckoo flowers, orchids, great burnett, and more, suddenly appearing to delight us. And the six-year old trees – particularly the apple trees – in the ‘Three-score years + 10’ 2018 wood are already being colonised by lichens. In time, as I grow better at identifying these complex organisms, I hope to include a list of lichens too – for they’re the epitome of ‘interacting stories’.

Postscript: The moorhens:

A few days after I posted this, I thought I was hallucinating – a moorhen wandered past the kitchen window. About a week later, there was a nest amongst the reeds. Then 4 eggs. But only one moorhen. However, the trailcam gave away their secret – there were, of course, two birds, who met up and changed places in the evening and night. There is now always one on the nest, the other occasionally seen in the boggy patch in the next-door field, or lurking at the edge of the pond. The brooding period is 20-21 days, so we look forward to seeing babies. Meanwhile, the mallard sitting on her nest on the island, just a couple of metres from the moorhens, has hatched 8 chicks after 28 days – and after a day pottering around the pond, has taken them away, who knows where? We wish them luck and a happy life. The diversity and number of invertebrates in the pond has no doubt had a set-back …