Bill Oddie Unplucked: Columns, Blogs and Musings (Bloomsbury Nature Writing)

by Bill Oddie

  We shall see

  So what did I find the next morning? A cute little mouse! I admired and photographed him (or her), and released him in the street’s communal garden. About 100 metres down the road. ‘Not far enough,’ several regulars at our local coffee shop have told me. ‘You have to take them at least a mile away, otherwise they’ll just come back.’ Well, we shall see, because before he leapt to freedom, I anointed this little fellow’s feet with green food dye. He is a marked mouse.

  Watch this space.

  Blog Five

  Mine all Mine

  Hey ho, hey ho

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know I haven’t blogged for several weeks, but I was in no fit state. Actually, I was in Zambia, East Africa. Oh yeah, swanning around the luxury safari camps in my lightweight linens, I dare say you assume. Well, as a matter of fact, for the first four days I was done up in overalls, wellies and a hard hat. Not the ideal garb when the temperature is high and the humidity is higher, but obligatory if you are dodging diggers, bulldozers and falling rocks, or seeking refuge down a mine shaft. A mine shaft where a large section of the tunnel ceiling was being contained from collapsing by what looked like a giant rope hairnet. In fact it had collapsed only a week before, but we were assured that the net meant that that bit was safe now. Of course, no one could vouch for the rest of the tunnel. There was much nervous banter about Chilean miners, being rescued by Lassie, and: ‘Please can we get back above ground as quickly as possible?’ This we did, only to find ourselves careering through a dust cloud, crammed into a rattling Land Rover, precariously descending into what looked like a massive volcanic crater but was in fact the work of the diggers and bulldozers that had gouged out this giant quarry. At the bottom, a small team of workers were scrabbling in the mud and staring intently downwards, as if all of them had coincidentally lost their contact lenses. The truth was that keen eyesight was essential to their task. They were searching for emeralds.

  Emerald city

  Now, I have to admit that gemstones and jewellery are not high on my list of interests, nor indeed do I consider them ‘precious stones’ because they look dazzling, but simply because they are worth a lot of money. Rather like a lot of contemporary art, the value of an emerald seems to be dictated only by what some extremely rich person is prepared to pay. Whatever the price paid, that is what the stone is worth. Until it gets sold to another rich dealer, whereupon it becomes worth even more. During the course of our visit we were frequently enlightened by lectures, demonstrations, PowerPoint presentations, and one-sided conversations about the complexities of the international gem market. To be honest, I understood barely a word. What I did grasp, though, was that the management of this mining company was doing well enough to be able to contribute a considerable sum of money to ‘good causes’. In fact, they already were providing medical and schooling facilities for the local people, and – and here at last comes the reason for me donning a hard hat and braving an African mine shaft – they had also subsidised an elephant conservation project in India. They were now anxious to support their own Zambian wildlife, and we were anxious to let them. ‘We’ were a small deputation representing the World Land Trust, led by their Chief Exec, John Burton. To find out more about the excellent work they do please visit their website: www.worldlandtrust.org.

  Show me the money

  I have known ‘purist’ conservationists baulk at the idea of accepting funding from big industrial companies, especially ones that have the potential to destroy or ruin habitats. I remember 50ish years ago when large oil companies, such as Shell and BP, first began espousing wildlife and ecology by funding the publication of new bird books, and maintaining nature trails and reserves and so on, there was a widespread suspicion that it was ‘guilt money’, and the offers were not always accepted. To put it bluntly, the majority of conservationists nowadays take a more pragmatic attitude to industry, development, etc. The policy is: make sure they do as little damage as possible and hand over as much money as you can get! To be fair, many of these companies are genuinely anxious to appear both responsible and generous.

  Trust the Trust

  Of course, mining – for emeralds or anything else – is potentially a great wrecker of habitat, especially if it is open-cast. I well recall the state parts of Northumberland and Wales were left in after the ravages of open-cast coal-mining. Fortunately, nowadays there is an obligation to repair the damage. Indeed, excavation can be ultimately constructive. One generation’s quarries can become the next generation’s lakes, marshes and reedbeds. Just add water! This is already happening in Zambia at the emerald mine we visited. Further negotiations with the World Land Trust are continuing, even as I blog. I will keep you posted.

  All Greek to me

  All that sounds pretty constructive, doesn’t it? So why did I start this blog off with a whinge? Ah, well, I am afraid our emerald-mining hosts made one mistake. On the last night they took us to a Greek restaurant. Not what you’d expect in Zambia, and indeed the food was not so much Greek as sort of Italian. Oh, let’s face it, it was a pizza house. Instead of doing the prudent thing, like leaving, at least three of us chose dishes that involved fish or prawns. At some point during coffee, it was pointed out that we could hardly be further away from the sea, in a country probably not renowned for its rapid refrigerated transportation. The consequences were inevitable, unpleasant and lasted throughout the three days we spent at a delightful lodge in Luangwa. Alas, my condition was anything but delightful. A dawn safari drive is not the best thing to calm a queasy tummy and loose bowels. Erratic movement on rutted roads has much the same effect as being tossed around in a rowing boat in a squall, while being caught short leaves you with some pretty insidious choices. You can ask the driver to stop so you can nip behind a bush, but you risk antagonising a family of resting Lions. One can’t imagine they would be pleased! Or you can try and hold it in till you get back to the lodge. You can try, but you may not succeed. In case you are wondering… you really don’t want to know. And you certainly don’t want me to describe it!

  Would I recommend Zambia for an African adventure? Yes, yes and yes. Just don’t eat the Greek pizza.

  Tubby little singers

  News from my garden. I am happy to say the Wrens are back. If indeed they ever went away. Certainly, a month ago there wasn’t a Wren to be seen or heard in my neighbourhood and I feared that they had been hit very hard by the coldest part of the winter. Then, at the end of March, it was if someone had switched on ‘Radio Wren’. Now there must be half a dozen tubby little singers belting it out on what was previously the silent circuit. So did they go, or just go quiet? Some of our birds do perform what are known as ‘weather movements’ if the weather gets too nasty. Lapwings, Skylarks, some pipits and finches fly off south-west and maybe even over to southern Ireland where it is milder. But Wrens? Surely not? Maybe they have learnt how to hibernate. Anyway, I am very happy they are back.

  Shock!

  As it happens, I was recently browsing the results of the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. I noticed that Wrens were down at number 20. A considerable slide for a bird that has been regarded as Britain’s most numerous. The top two also surprised me: House Sparrow and Starling, though that doesn’t mean that they are increasing in number. I have seen neither in my garden for years. Another shock result, no Blackbird in the top 20! And Blue Tit appeared twice at both three and four until the RSPB scorer corrected the mistake and inserted Blackbird at number four where it belonged. Phew! Just in time to head off a ‘Save our Blackbirds’ campaign on Twitter.

  Right then. I am due to cross the Atlantic in a fortnight’s time. Going to South Carolina to meet some gibbons. Honestly. All will eventually be revealed. The only downside is that I will miss The Wedding. It will serve them right for not inviting me. They seem a nice young couple. I wonder if she feeds the birds instead of shooting them? It would be great to see a royal setting a good example wouldn’t it? After all, it is the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds.

  Blog Six

  Blow me Down

  It’s a twister!

  Blimey, doesn’t time fly, especially when I have been – flying that is. If I remember rightly – it’s so long ago – I concluded my last blog by bidding you farewell before boarding a plane bound for Charleston, South Carolina, USA. There I would proceed to Summerville to visit the headquarters of the International Primate Protection League (IPPL), and also the residence of 30-odd gibbons. I was looking forward to it very much. The only small frisson of trepidation was triggered by news of extensive tornado damage in the south-eastern states of the US, including South Carolina. I scared myself even more by logging on to the American Weather Channel, which featured a continuous stream of video clips of ever blacker, ever bigger, and ever more destructive ‘twisters’. These had all been sent in by viewers who invariably added a live commentary along the lines of: (please imagine a southern accent) ‘I sure seen some twisters in my time, but damned if I seen one big as this!’ Or – as if to top that – ‘God damnit if there were not just one twister, but two of ’em! Like a pair of angry twins coming straight at us. I’m thinking, Lord, between ’em they gonna lift up the house. All we could do was sit tight and pray. So we did. And you know what? Just before they hit the house, them twister twins split either side of us. One of ’em clean lifted my wife’s Chevy off the front drive, and the other one grabbed my pick-up from the back, threw it in the air, spinning like a top, and let it drop bang slap in the Reverend Millhouse’s prize rose garden. And God damnit if there weren’t four or five other vehicles already been pitched there by the twister, and they were on their sides, on their backs, wheels still spinning, like snapper turtles that had been tipped over by the kids. And I’m thinking, Lord, this is truly hell, when all of a sudden, the wind stops roaring and the rain stops pouring, and I figure we are right in the eye of the tornado, ’cos the sky is all still and calm and empty. No more pieces of fenders and trash cans and picket fences flying through the air. Nothing. Except, God damnit, I do believe it started to snow! But, of course, it weren’t snow, it was rose petals! Floatin’ down, pink and red and yellow and… Well, it was like it was showering down bits of rainbow. I gotta tell you it was beautiful. And now I’m thinking, if this ain’t hell, maybe it’s heaven. Only one thing spoilt it. Suddenly Reverend Millhouse comes out of his house, sees what’s happened to his prize roses, and boy is he pissed! He starts cussin’ and hollerin’ and yellin’ right up at the sky, like he’s complaining to the Lord himself. I swear he called him a “holy mother f*****!” Sure weren’t words you expect to hear from a man of God.’

  Very scary

  I admit I have embroidered that account a wee bit, but I promise you, there was some very scary footage of twisters and the appalling damage they cause. Nevertheless, I have to admit that a little bit of me was rather hoping I would get to see a twister myself. From a safe distance.

  But I didn’t. During the eight days I was in South Carolina, I experienced two light showers and some morning mist. Otherwise, it was blue skies every day.

  But I did see some gibbons

  The IPPL sanctuary is not a zoo. It is not open to the public. It is simply a safe home for some gorgeous animals that have previously lived in inappropriate or indeed horrendous conditions. They are ‘rescue’ gibbons. Some spent years being used for ‘research’ in laboratories. Others were saved from incompetent private owners or substandard zoos. They can never be returned to the wild, but at least at Summerville they are safe, cared for, and, most clearly of all, very much loved. To get to know them better and to learn more about primates and their problems I recommend visiting the IPPL website – www.ippl.org – and also do a bit of gibbon Googling. There are some great photos, but believe me, you haven’t really experienced the best of a gibbon until you’ve seen it and heard it swinging and singing.

  Buzz

  Meanwhile, back in London. Something completely different, and to me completely new, though very close to home. Very close. In a tree just outside the back door. It is a slightly straggly lilac, which has become an extension of what I call ‘the magic tree’ in that I have chosen to festoon it with a kaleidoscope of wind chimes, fragments of coloured glass, beads, fake butterflies and an ornamental bird-box that is painted yellow with a red roof, and has never been used. But it has now. But not by birds. A small colony of bees has moved in. This sort of thing has happened before in my garden. I was once cleaning out a box and got stung by a ‘solitary bee’ that wanted to be alone. Another year, the same box was commandeered by a few White-tailed Bumblebees, which are quite tubby and slow and bumbly and therefore not too hard to identify. They are not, however, the only species that has a white tail. For instance, the bees in my magic box. They appeared to also have a largely black body and a gingery shawl (yes, I know, I should use all the scientific words for insect parts but I can never remember them). In fact, I was having trouble getting a decent view because they wouldn’t keep still. Every now and then, one would zoom in or out of the hole in the nestbox, but the most conspicuous action was a small party that just kept swirling around outside the box, bouncing, dipping and diving, as if they were dancing. A rather unruly square dance perhaps?

  Let it bee

  Next step, consult the literature. In my pre-computer days I was pretty addicted to the excellent laminated identification charts produced by such organisations as the Wildlife Trusts. I also have a few favourite books on garden wildlife. So I searched. But I could not find my mystery bees.

  However, it just so happened that later in the week I was due to attend an event at which Buglife would launch its ‘Get Britain Buzzing’ campaign (for more on that visit www.buglife.org.uk). I had barely entered the room when my eyes fell on an illustrated leaflet about ‘bees in your garden’, and there, among other species I knew well, was a photo of my bee! It was labelled Tree Bumblebee. Never heard of it! But my bees were in a tree. I soon collared a bee expert – not difficult at Buglife! – and quizzed him about Tree Bumblebees. What he told me was instantly conclusive. ‘They often nest in old bird-boxes.’ Like mine. ‘They have this behaviour of dancing outside the nest.’ Exactly like mine! ‘They arrived from the Continent about five or six years ago.’ Which explains why they are not in the books. ‘Any problems with them?’ I asked. ‘No. In fact it’s good to report that we have another pollinator in Britain. That’s what this Buglife campaign is all about.’ Exactly. So, I’ve got Tree Bumblebees! Welcome.

  Dead parrots?

  Another thing I’ve got in my garden is parakeets. There are, of course, parakeets all over London and beyond and there have been for years. There are probably more than 50,000 of them out there in the wild and they are now accepted as British birds.

  It has therefore caused a right old kerfuffle that the government, with the support of the RSPB, has decided to ‘cull parakeets’! Thus ran the headline in several national newspapers a few weeks ago. The article was often accompanied by a picture of a parakeet, just like the ones in my garden. The bird in question is a Ring-necked (or Rose-ringed) Parakeet.

  On the face of it, this is a pretty unbelievable decision. Kill more than 50,000 birds! That’s not a cull, that’s slaughter. And it is surely impossible. Added to which, people – well most people – have grown rather fond of the old Ring-neckeds. And the RSPB approves! Outrageous!

  Get it right!

  Hang on, hang on! Remember the irrefutable adage by which we should all temper our opinions: ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.’ In the case of some papers, this could be amended to: ‘Don’t believe anything you read in the papers.’ To which I would add: don’t assume that they’ve got the right pictures in the papers. I sadly report that at least two so-called ‘quality’ papers proudly printed photos of Ring-necked Parakeets, alongside the ‘parakeets to be culled’ story. Wrong!

  Monks’ menace?

  The proposed cull refers to Monk Parakeets, which are quite different fr
om the Ring-neckeds, have a much smaller population and potentially do far more damage. There are thought to be about 100 to 150 birds on the loose (mainly round London) and the problem is that – unlike the Ring-neckeds, which live in tree holes – the Monks build an enormous nest of twigs and branches, which may be in a small colony, so that half a dozen nests meld together in a huge clump which can be the size of a small car! Unfortunately, this construction is often perched on a telegraph pole or electricity pylon and woven into the wires. In the US this has been known to cause blackouts.

  I am not going to comment any further, but in case you were about to convene a Save Our Parrots campaign, please make sure you’ve got the right one. And don’t depend on the papers for the facts. Although sometimes…

  Chinese crackers

  Did you see the story about the Chinese watermelon farmers who overdosed their crop on a chemical ‘growth accelerator’ and arose one morning to find their fields erupting with hundreds of exploding melons? What a wonderful image! It’s at times like this I wish I was still doing a comedy show!

  Blog seven

  Shall We Dance?

  Strictly

  I could have been Ann Widdecombe. Or am I more Russell Grant? So what weird fantasy is this? Have I decided to come out and confess my secret desire to be on Strictly Come Dancing? Well, the fact is I could’ve been. No, honestly, a couple of months ago the Strictly office rang me and asked if I would like to come in and discuss my being on this year’s show. I decided to go into the office if only because it gave me an excuse to get all nostalgic about the old studios at BBC TV Centre, which are due to be sold off rather than plastered in blue plaques and preserved for ever as a shrine to the great BBC shows of yesteryear. There was also the small possibility that I might bump into one of the bosses who might recognise me and remember that I used to appear a lot on BBC Two, and could do so again. If they asked me. I can dream.