The North wind doth blow . . .

 

The North wind doth blow . . .

 . . . except that it dothn’t. True, the wind was ‘from the North’ at one mile per hour or something ridiculous. That was fine by me. It was quite cold enough without it being shunted along at speed, and I was indoors, for goodness’ sake. The house isn’t hermetically sealed but most of the draughts have been denied access.

. . . and we shall have snow

Well, yes, we have had snow, not enough to write home about, but snow nonetheless. It came down in big, soft flakes, quite impressively, for a while. I noticed from my Reolink camera that it was settling abjectly and rather sulkily on the cars on the drive, as though it would rather be somewhere else.

 . . . and what will the robin do then, poor thing?

He’ll sit in a barn

To keep himself warm . . .

. . . well, he would, if he could find one that hasn’t been snapped up and converted at vast expense to make a desirable property for a human, but if he manages to find a vacant barn being used for its original purpose . . .

He’ll sit in a barn

To keep himself warm

 And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

There are four more verses to this rhyme. The second one asks,

And what will the swallow do then, poor thing?

Oh, do you not know

That he’s off long ago,

To a country where he will find spring, poor thing.

The third and fourth verses speak of the dormouse and honey bee, both of which hibernate until the spring, and the final verse refers to children.

When lessons are done

They will skip, jump and run,

Until they have made themselves warm, poor things.

Much is made of the joy to be had in the snow – tobogganing, building snowmen, snowball fights, making snow angels. All such pursuits are great fun, but the cold! Who can forget the frozen fingers and the agony of warmth returning to icy hands and feet, the face flayed by bitter wind, nose pinched and cold, drawing arctic breath into aching lungs?

Snow is lovely, in small amounts, for a short while, for those who do not have to travel.

Today the wind is from the East-North-East at 4 miles per hour. The sun is shining fitfully and blue tits are busy in the garden.

Is there a poem that starts, ‘The East-North-East wind doth blow’?

Sleepy

 

Sleepy

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Is there a sleepy bug? If so, I’ve caught it. I have become of late a drifter into drowsiness, a slider into slumbrousness, a toppler into torpor. Am I entering hibernation?

I believed, erroneously, that badgers hibernate, but have just discovered that they enter a state of lethargy for several weeks when it is very cold. The only mammals to hibernate in UK are bats, hedgehogs and dormice. They may wake briefly to relieve themselves or if there is unusually warm weather, or because it is so cold that ice crystals may begin forming in their blood.

 What really is the difference between torpor and hibernation? Hibernation is a condition entered into voluntarily, a bit like marriage, and lasts for several months, while torpor is involuntary and lasts for a shorter period, like imprisonment.

My snoozes are mostly involuntary and I miss the ends of programmes, or the end of a sentence I am reading. What a waste of time! 

Bats

 

Bats

Britain's largest bat, the Noctule, is about 8cms (3") long, It eats moths, chafers, mayflies and flying ants and lives for about 5 years.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

We had a sad little WhatsApp message from Susannah last night:-

‘The cats just murdered a bat in the house😨’

I was quite impressed by that, though feeling sorry for the bat, and thinking that cats were not likely bat predators. How wrong I was! When I looked for more information I discovered that cats are responsible for a great number of bat fatalities. They can hear bat calls and may sit just beneath a roost and leap to catch bats as they emerge. They are thought to be among the most significant predators of bats, along with owls, principally the barn owl and the tawny owl.

The advice to concerned cat owners is to keep their cats indoors half an hour before and one hour after sunset. However, Susannah’s unfortunate ‘guest’ was in the house, so asking for trouble, dicing with death, in fact.

Although I find these furry flying mammals very interesting, they are not very attractive with their pug noses. They don’t really look like pretty little mice with wings!

                                                          Noctule
                                          Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Worldwide, there are more than 1,400 species of bats and the majority are nocturnal. Around ten species are diurnal. They are the megabats, the flying foxes or fruit bats.

Almost a quarter of UK mammals are bats. There are 18 species, ranging from the Pipistrelle, (Pipistrellus) the smallest and commonest, to the largest bat, the Noctule (Nyctalus noctula). Pipistrelle comes from the Italian ‘pipistrello’, meaning bat.

Britain's smallest bat, the Pipistrelle, is less than 5 cms (2") long. It can live for 4-5 years and will eat 3,000 insects a night. Its diet consists of flies, moths, midges and mosquitoes.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

All UK bats and their roosts are protected under European and UK legislation because these small mammals have been significantly in decline for a few decades. There are many reasons for this, including a loss of habitat and a considerable decrease in insects.

All British bats hibernate. They are one of only three British mammals to do so, the other two being hedgehogs and dormice. Bats usually start hibernating in November, when cold weather has significantly reduced the insect population. When they hibernate, their bodily functions slow down, using less energy. Their heart rate, which is over 1,000 beats per minute in flight, reduces to around 20 beats a minute. Their breathing also slows. The decrease in metabolic activity enables the bats to survive for longer on the fat reserves they built up prior to hibernating. In warmer spells in the winter the animals may wake up and fly to different locations or seek food before going back into hibernation.

Bats hibernate in a variety of places. About three quarters of them roost in trees, others enter caves or tunnels, while yet others find shelter in barns or the roofs of houses. They have no means of drilling holes in trees or making nests so use whatever they can find.

Bats mate in the autumn but the females store the sperm so that they become pregnant in the spring. Delayed implantation (embryonic diapause) is a strategy used by around one hundred mammals, including stoats, badgers, rodents and roe deer.  In this way, the bat pups develop at a time when food is more readily available.

 Bats emerge from hibernation in May. Babies are born between the middle of June and August and are fed by their mothers for four to five weeks, until they are strong enough to fly. When they are very small, they cling to their mothers while they fly out to catch food. Once they are too heavy to carry, their mothers leave them holding onto a wall, or branch while they hunt for food.

'An  Inconvenience' by John Banister Tabb

To his cousin the Bat

Squeaked the envious Rat,

"How fine to be able to fly!"

Tittered she, "Leather wings

Are convenient things,

But nothing to sit on have I."

Father John Banister Tabb (1845-1909) was an American poet, Roman Catholic priest and professor of English