Early Wildlife In The Lake District

At the beginning of this century the badger was considered a rare animal throughout the country. However, in the intervening years, it has staged a remarkable comeback and there must now be few suitable places in Lakeland which it has not colonized. It is an animal of catholic tastes eating both vegetable and animal food, berries, roots, earthworms, beetles, young rabbits, carrion etc. Such a diverse diet makes the badger our most adaptable large mammal, and its rarity in the past can only have been occasioned by human persecution in ignorance of its habits, or because of misguided customs and downright superstition. On the deficit side 1 Formerly domesticated though now wild.

Finally, passing to the coastal areas of the National Park; the most outstanding place of interest to the naturalist is Ravenglass Dunes, declared a Local Nature Reserve by Cumberland County Council in March, 1954. The size of the breeding colony of Blackheaded Gulls is boundary. The bittern is of course a winter visitor to the mosses around Morecambe Bay. Another rare species, the Corncrake, is occasionally found in the National Park, especially alongside some of the lakes where mowing machines can not be taken and the vegetation becomes rank, i.e - Windermere and Esthwaite.

It is however a very erratic summer visitor. The bird, especially in flight, most likely to catch the eye in the vicinity of water whether this be lake, river, beck or by the sea, is the Heron. With its large wingspan, leisurely flight and raucous croak it can be expected wherever the ground is 'a little damp'. Despite the disappearance of many of the long established heronries with the felling of trees in two world wars it has maintained its numbers remarkably well. There are still a handful of small heronries in the National Park but the majority of the birds probably arise as an overspill from the heronry at Dallam Tower, a few miles onside the southern boundary.

The margins of lakes and waterways generally will often provide evidence of the Otter in the way of footprints, droppings or the remains of a meal, usually only fish scales and a drop or two of blood. This is all of the otter that the majority of us can expect to see although it is believed to be fairly widespread. Apart from the breeding season when the female has to stay for a certain time within the vicinity of its young, the otter seems to spend much of its time travelling from place to place, often undertaking considerable overland journeys. It is perhaps the person quietly fishing the waters of some river or lake in the still of evening who is more likely to encounter otters than someone who sets out to search for them deliberately. Two less spectacular mammals of river and beck are the Water Vole and Water Shrew.

The former is fairly widespread in sluggish waters, although it is more often heard, than seen, when it plunges from the bank into the water with a 'plop' and disappears almost immediately into an underwater burrow. The water shrew is generally believed to be uncommon but this may be more apparent than real, for in 150 small mammals recently caught in a garden near Grange-over-Sands, two were Water Shrews although the nearest stream is 300 yards away. (About 120 of the animals trapped were Long tailed Field mice, the rest in about equal numbers were Short Tailed Bank Vole, Fieldvole, Common Shrew and two Pygmy Shrew.) the Red Squirrel has declined to a marked extent.

This may be due to natural causes, but seems more likely to be related to the extensive felling of mature hardwood trees in two world wars. On a small estate in the south of the Park squirrels were very common six years ago. About 100 over mature trees were then selectively felled, hardly altering the character of the wood but removing all the cavities and niches where squirrels could hide away. (Three squirrels were killed during felling, one being thrown from a falling tree and two found crushed in the cavities of the felled timber.) Subsequently the sight of a Red Squirrel has been a rare occurrence.