Careful Study

On 27 April 1947 - 75 years ago - a study began within a defined area of Wytham Wood, just down the road near Oxford. That day, the first great tit egg of that year in that area was laid. The population of Great tits in Wytham has been continuously monitored and researched until the present day, producing over 70 PhD theses and 350 scientific papers, yielding knowledge about social networking in the tit community; behavioural and reproductive changes in response to a range of environmental factors; learned behaviour and "sub-cultures" within the community; genetic changes in the birds over a surprisingly short time period; and, of course, their responses to climate change, one of which is that, this year, the first egg was laid on 28 March, one day short of a month earlier

Scientists were proud of this study, and its longevity and importance, when I was involved with Wytham in the 1970s. Its significance increases every year, and the emergence since then of digital technology and DNA analysis, along with the availability of those exceptionally long-term records, have amplified its potential

Apparently they chose great tits (rather than robins, which has been the subject of some earlier work) because great tits readily nest in boxes provided by the researchers, whereas robins prefer to nest secretly in bramble patches - scientists are no fools! There are three nest boxes installed just above where this individual was resting - I hope it was engaged in a house hunt

Bleak mid-winter today. Snow clinging wetly to everything - including a decent sized snowball that developed inside the ankle of my waterproof overtrousers during a walk - the mechanics of that defeat me. We climbed a mist-shrouded hill beneath lowering cloud, discussing what the skylarks we see up here in summer do with themselves in winter. At the top we were rewarded with an answer: a dozen or more of them among the corn, rising to a few feet and then thinking better of it and dropping back down between the snowy rows. In short, they tough it out!