The not-so-common nightingale at Moat Farm, Kent

Transcript to podcast

Rob Smith to audience: This is Talk on the Wild Side.

I'm Rob Smith, and this episode is dedicated to fulfilling a real bucket list moment, hearing the song of a Nightingale.

(plays a clip from the song “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” by Nat King Cole )

Now. Nat King Cole does have a lovely voice, but it is no match for a Nightingale, is it?  They are such rare birds these days sadly, numbers are down to a tiny fraction of what they used to be a couple of hundred years ago.  Perhaps as few as four thousand pairs now breed in the UK. But Kent is blessed with some of the best places in the country for attracting the little birds to nest. And it is at nesting time that you're most likely to hear them, as the males call for a female to let them know they found a great spot to start a family in the middle of a dense, thorny patch of scrub. 

Now one of the best places in Kent to hear them is actually at Moat Farm in Shadoxhurst, near Ashford, where Mike Bax has dedicated the last few decades to making his land as hospitable to native British species as possible. 

And in late April, on a somewhat inauspicious, overcast and damp evening, Mike very kindly took me for a ramble through his fields and woods in the hope of capturing some of the magical liquid laser-gun sounds of Nightingales at first hand.

And we started off chatting about how spring is the most hopeful time of the year.

Mike Bax: I don't think you can knock the spring, can you? It's got to be the best time of year. I mean, everything greens up. we get fantastic blossom begins to come and things like blackthorn, and then the hawthorn follows and we get all the fruit trees coming out. And we've just had wild cherry. We've got the bluebells at the moment. Wonderful wood anenomes two or three weeks ago. So it's a great time of year. Yeah.

Rob: And we're just stood here. So we're, we're just fifty yards from your house and literally the other side of the pond next to your house, we've got a little stand of, well you explain what are we looking at here?

Mike: So we're looking at early purple orchids. And that's, you know, a nice little colony of early purple that's developed gradually over a long period of time. They don't appear on these clay soils as fast as they do in some of the sort of chalky woodlands of the North Downs on one or two of the KWT reserves are fantastic shows of early purple orchids. But these are nice and we we've got little pockets of early purples all over the farm.

Rob: Have you done anything to encourage them or have they just made their own way here?

Mike: We’ve done nothing to encourage them. They just appeared.

Rob: Yeah. Yeah. Because when I was here before and I had a bit of a chat with your other half, Jan, and she was talking about how you came to be working the farm and working the land in the way that you do. That nature is absolutely front and centre of your thought process about all of it, isn't it?

Mike: Yeah, it is. We came here nearly thirty-eight years ago and we brought with us a flock of a hundred breeding ewes and some suckler cows that we used to multi-suckle with calves. And you know, we used to chuck a bit of nitrogen around for a year or two. And we rapidly discovered that, you know, there's no way you could make a profit if you incurred cost. And the thing that really saved the day in the context of being able to generate a bit of money to do some conservation was the change in the subsidy regime. So, whereas when we first came there was only subsidy on arable land, arable area payments, things changed and suddenly the basic payment scheme came in on the single payment scheme as it was at that time and you could claim subsidy on grassland as well as arable.

So we're all grass here and we started being able to do that claim and there was a thing called entry level stewardship which was a small top up on that grassland single payment claim. And then as we did less and less farming, really nothing other than mowing for hay, in came some improved stewardship schemes which recognised species rich habitat and so on. And we began to get into those and we're now in the higher tier stewardship scheme and that's made all the difference. You know, we, we reinvest everything in conservation.

Rob: And in terms of being species rich this place really is species rich, isn't it? Particularly the bird life.

Mike: Yeah, fantastic bird life. I mean, the nightingales are the sort of absolute prime bird species. But, you know, because we've got a hundred and fifty acres of ancient woodland and a hundred acres of pretty well unspoilt species rich grassland, there are all sorts of different food sources. And where you get different food sources, you get a different display of birds. And you know, that's the way it works, isn't it? You gotta start with food.

Rob: So it's about, it's coming on for seven o'clock. So we're just sort of getting into the gloaming of the evening. It's a bit moist in the air, but we're hopeful if we head off to the woods that we might be able to hear a nightingale.

Mike: Never be more than hopeful, but it's a shame that's the way it is. But dampness, they, they don't sing an awful lot when it's damp. But the great thing is the temperature has gone up compared to the last two or three days. So that may help us. And I think all we can do is get out there and have a look.

Rob: All right, let's go and give you the game lead on.

Rob: So as we're walking along. There's a you've got a big owl box up there. Anything in it?

Mike:  Stock doves this year.

Rob: Right OK

Mike: The barn owls have nested in that, we had five fledged out of there and the COVID year - barn owls, they seem to be stock dove favourites, these ones that are up high on poles -you can see another one just see over there. But we have a barn owl box used annually close by to the house and that's occupied again this year. So hopefully we'll get some fledglings out of that.

Rob: Right OK do the owls kick the doves out at some point then is that how it works? Or is it one or the other?

Mike: I think that once the stock doves are in possession, the owls don't take much interest.

Rob: Right.

Mike: But yeah, the stock doves are a bit of a, you know, nice to see them, but a bit of a nuisance when you want to see barn owls. On the other hand, they say a barn owl to three hundred acres, so we probably don't really need more than one family of barn owls. It's nice population over here generally.

Rob: Yeah. All right, let's keep going.

Mike. We've just come through a gate towards the edge of the woodland here and I mean, it's just the sound of the bluest bluebells you're ever going to see anywhere. It's absolutely staggering.

Mike: Yeah, they're beautiful, aren't they? It's interesting how this one, funnily enough, this little block of bluebells at one time was a pheasant release pen. Somebody used to run a shoot here. And so the pheasants in there must have built the fertility up. And the bluebells have responded positively to that. But we've got another part of the farm where there weren't any pheasants at all, where we've got bluebells like that, so it's definitely down to soil conditions.

Rob: What was it that first sparked you off on nature? Is there a sort of like a moment when you suddenly realise – “I love this stuff”?

Mike: Yeah, it certainly started with birds when I was a little boy. I mean, sort of four or five, I guess. And I think my mother was very good, you know, she encouraged me in that direction. And I would say this, the thing that first fascinated me was the ladybird books of birds. And they're always lovely pictures of birds. And, you know, they didn't concentrate on rare birds. They concentrated on birds that you would see quite regularly around the garden and so on. And there was always a picture of the egg, et cetera.

So needless to say, I got pretty keen on bird nesting and trying to find the nests and so on.

Rob: Did you grow up in Kent. Is this your part of the world?

Mike: We grew up in Selling, near Faversham.

Rob: Yeah. Yeah.

Mike: So we're a bit South of there, but, yeah, you know, Kent. And that's where it all started. And then, you know, when you start sort of going feral, as I did, you get interested in everything else. I mean, you know, going to the age of, I suppose ten or twelve by then I was interested in everything.

 I used to collect slow worms and frogs and newts and all that sort of thing and, you know, catch them and let them go and enjoy them. It was terrific.

Rob: So Nightingales and it is slightly damp. So, you know, we, we remain hopeful, but we'll see what actually happens. Give me a bit of natural history about the Nightingale. Are they migratory birds? Do they live here permanently? Why do they choose to come to this part of the world?

Mike: Hmm. I think that in in the UK they're pretty well limited now to South East England and you know, up into east Anglia a wee bit. And that's probably got a bit to do with climate change and so on.

But the reason they come here is I think because their habitats are right. So, Kent was always a stronghold of nightingales, I think because of coppicing. So where you've got rotational cutting of coppice woodland every fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years, when the wood 's been cut, the ground, you know, regrows all its bramble and thick cover and so on while the sunlight 's getting in. And so for a few years, between years four and eight, something like that, conditions are absolutely spot on in a coppice woodland. And that's the nesting cover.

Rob: Because they like to be right in the thick of it being really protected?

Mike: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So, you know, it, it's all the usual stuff. Habitat is key, isn't it? That, you know, that they're looking for a bit of protection from predators. Well they get that by living in thorny cover; they want food, well underneath that thorny cover, there's a lot of invertebrates in the leaf litter and so on. And then they want somewhere to breed. Well, again, the thorny cover is a pretty good place to breed.

Rob: And so do you actually try and manage the woodland that you've got to keep coppicing. Do you do deliberately set that kind of thing up?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, we do. And the system we developed when we installed a biomass boiler. So we heat four houses on the farm with biomass so that that is hornbeam coppice which is chipped and the wood chip from the hornbean coppice is burnt in a big boiler which provides a heating system. And it also requires us to do enough coppicing every year to produce about a hundred tonnes of wood chip.

Rob: And that means that you are then producing those patches of ground that get all brambly and tangled over and that the nightingales go “brilliant! Come on, chaps!”.

Mike: And we go, yeah, it's about two or three, two or three acres a year. And we try to connect it up and so far it's working. I mean, but this is this is a hotspot despite that. I mean, you know, we've got probably fifteen territories here on Moat Farm. And I'm going to take you into an SSSI site next door, which is probably got five or six on it. And then Alston Forest is half a mile away. And Alston Forest has always been a hot spot. And last year the overall count in this part of the world by the BTO was ninety two singing males. So, so you know, it's as strong a stronghold for Nnghtingales as anywhere in the country.

Rob: Well, let let's go and see if we can find one that shall we?

So Mike, we've come through into the into the woods and I can hear quite a lot of birdsong around us. But this is actually the site or close to the site where we may hear a nightingale.

Mike: Yeah, we're close to two territories where birds are singing regularly and over the last week or ten days, one behind us and one about a hundred yards across. We will move slowly in that direction in a minute and at this time of day, sort of seven o'clock in the evening, probably a little bit early, prime time is dawn where we, you know, we can't do that. It's a bit ambitious, but we've got a chance here. But I know where the birds are. So we'll go to the territories and we've just got to hope that one of them 's feeling in a good mood despite the rain.

Rob: And is there anything that you have to do or is it just try and stay as quiet and still as possible?

Mike: You just, you know, they actually don't mind a bit of movement or a bit of quiet chatting going on. But the less disturbance the better, as always with wildlife.

But no, we, we can't call them or anything like that.

If we wanted to cheat, I suppose we could turn on a recorder and a male would probably come and attack us to see us off but we, we won't do that.

But there's a there's a very interesting project being run by Chas Holt, who's the head of ecology at Adonis Blue. And he fitted some birds with trackers last year. Caught them in mist nets and fitted them with tracking devices.

And they are site faithful. So those birds will have migrated to West Africa three thousand miles away, and they'll be back now. And Chas will be looking to recapture as many of those birds as he can to take the trackers off them and send them off to the BTO for the analysis of where they've been. Yeah. Yeah.

But you've got, you know, you've got to recapture them in mist nets and he's, you know, he's fully trained and does it very skillfully. And one of the ways to attract them to a mismatch is to play a recording of another male nightingale, and they'll come and try to see him off, but they discover it's Chas and not another nightingale. Yeah, yeah. And anyway, it all works well.

We'll move slowly towards that one just in case he starts. He's not singing at the moment.

Rob to audience: But then, magically, he did start singing.

(Plays recording of nightingale singing. You can hear the many, almost mechanical, different tones and trills that make this such an interesting song against the backdrop of other birds singing in the forest.)

Rob: So Mike we've heard the nightingale singing there.

Mike: It was pretty good wasn’t it?

Rob: Despite the dampness.

Mike: We closed in quickly now I'm very relieved. I thought we were in for a bit of a blank evening. And that's, that's a very nice little three or four minutes. You've heard there it's wonderful that sort of high note when they're “dee dee dee”. And then you almost think there are two birds because they sort of threw their voices. They're sort of ventriloquists. But yeah, that was great. So that's the male and the female is very likely already, she arrived around the eighth tenth of April, something like that. She's very likely to be already sitting on eggs,and once she's absolutely, firmly anchored to the nest, he'll stop singing

Rob: And the song. Is it a mating call? Is it a challenge to other males? What, how do they actually use the song?

Mike: I think the thing I favour is the fact that the males tend to come earlier than the females by a day or two. And they reckon that the females hear the males singing. So the males arrive, they find a territory and if they think it's good, they'll sit on their territory and sing and they'll be hoping to attract the incoming females who will come down to those songs and they will pair up.

And so that that's the purpose of this song. And then he, he seems to carry on singing for a short while, but once he's the female is firmly ensconced on her nest, then he'll stop singing. And the birds that do continue singing and we continue hearing birds singing right into May are the unpaired males. And they're very often thought to be the birds of the previous year. So not very experienced, you know, got a bit to learn about territory and all that type of thing. And they'll carry on singing and not pair up but.

Rob: And the the female birds, they like the chaps with the best song, most complicated song, the loudest voice?

Mike: I don't think we know the answer to that. But i'm sure it's mainly territory. She, want to, you know, a good bush with a nice structure to it where she can, they nest very close to the ground. I mean, literally a foot off the ground. Then she'll want that to be a real sawney little spot that predators won’t fancy getting into. And I think it'll be all about the territory.

Rob: And how does it make you feel when you come out here and you can see here the the nightingales sing? Ninety odd pairs you're saying, you know, they've become so rare.

Mike: Yeah.

Rob: And you've got them here.

Mike: Yeah. Well, you know, it lifts my heart, to be perfectly honest. I absolutely love it. On this on this farm, the highlight of the year is probably the nightingales followed by the first week in June when our wildflower meadows are at their most colourful and species richness is very evident from the flowering and those are the two highlights of the year for me. And then one of the other things I love are the wild service trees, the chequer trees when they're in flower in May and when the leaves are turning in late October, early November, because they go bright red and fantastic colour and they're an ancient woodland species.

So those are the three highlights of the year for me. But I think nightingales take the biscuit probably.

Rob: Well, I mean, it's been an amazing privilege. It's a bucket list thing ticked off for me to actually come and hear the nightingale singing the woodlands. So Mike, thank you ever so much for that's amazing.

Mike: Not at all. Well, it's great. And thank goodness we found one for you.

Rob to audience: Well, what a joy that was!

Now if you want to experience hearing nightingales in their natural habitat yourself, it is possible. you can book onto an evening with the nightingales and Mike at Moat Farm via their website moatfarmkent.co.uk. They've got all sorts of glamping places to stay if you want to, in a bell tent or a shepherds Hut, even a railway carriage. And there's all sorts of things you can enjoy at the farm as well. Wildflower meadows and ancient woodlands. Of course. You could even volunteer to do some work on the farm to help keep it all as wildlife friendly as possible. But you will have to be patient if you want to hear the nightingale sing since they've now finished their singing for this season and they won't be heard again until next spring. Well, this has been a most enjoyable Wild Rover Media production.

 I'm Rob Smith and until next time, do go wild in the country.