Kemerburgaz lies north of Istanbul, where the city meets the Belgrade Forest. Its wildlife shares four great habitats, and inside each of them are small but indispensable micro-habitats: a hollow, a muddy shore, the space beneath the eaves.
Every record in the notebook belongs to one of the four habitats below. Each card says what the habitat holds, which creatures live there, and what it needs in order to survive.
The edge of the Belgrade Forest and the Northern Forests: a wide broadleaf woodland of oak, beech, chestnut and hornbeam.
To survive it needs: old and dead trees, unbroken forest cover, and damp north-facing slopes.
Micro-habitats: Old tree with hollows · Dead wood and stumps · Leaf litter · Forest edge and clearing
The Ottoman dams, the streams that feed them and the reedy shores around them make up this habitat.
To survive it needs: water that does not drain away at the end of summer, reeds and muddy shores, and clean running streams.
Micro-habitats: Reed bed · Shallow shore and mud · Stream bank · Dam wall and stones
Old village houses, fountains, aqueducts and gardens make up this habitat, where wildlife has moved into what people built.
To survive it needs: the space under the eaves, the old holes in the walls, and gardens kept free of chemicals.
Micro-habitats: Eaves and roof tiles · Old stone walls and aqueducts · The village fountain · Garden and fruit tree
Meadows, hedgerows, sunny slopes and the migration route that passes above them all make up this habitat.
To survive it needs: unmown meadow, hedgerows left standing, and safe stopover places along the migration route.
Micro-habitats: Hedgerow · Unmown meadow · Sandy bank · Warming sky
Whether a species can live here often depends on a single detail: the scar where a branch rotted away, a shore that stays wet into late summer, a gap under a roof tile. The drawings below show these small worlds, which do not appear on the plates. Scroll the cards sideways.
The hollows that open where branches rot away and in old woodpecker holes are the forest’s ready-made rooms. Tawny owls, nuthatches and tits nest in them, and the squirrel stores its winter food there.
Fragile: This is the first thing to go when old trees are felled for being “dangerous”.
Pressure: Loss of forest, Forest fire →As a fallen trunk slowly rots it becomes a table for fungi, for insects and for the birds that hunt them. The inside of the stump softens a little more each year and holds more life.
Fragile: It is gathered and burnt during forest tidying, or carried away as firewood.
Pressure: Loss of forest →The damp layer of leaves is full of worms, snails and insects, and it keeps the soil cool and moist. Cyclamens and fungi come up through this blanket.
Fragile: It dries out in a hot summer, and once the tree above it is felled the sun burns it away.
Pressure: A forest cut into pieces, Drought, Forest fire →In this narrow belt where forest meets meadow, cover and food lie side by side. That is why the forest edge is busier than either the wood itself or the open meadow.
Fragile: Road and housing construction turns this soft edge into a hard line.
Pressure: Loss of forest, A forest cut into pieces, Forest fire →The belt of reed and rush along the shore is the curtain between water and land. The coot builds its floating nest here, and tadpoles and dragonfly larvae grow up in this sheltered water.
Fragile: This is the first belt to dry out when the water drops.
Pressure: Drought →The muddy shore uncovered when the water drops at the end of summer becomes a hunting ground for a few weeks. The grey heron waits at the edge while the wagtail runs over the mud picking up insects.
Fragile: In a drought it widens at first, then dries out completely.
Pressure: Drought →An earth bank dropping straight into the water is in demand because it is easy to dig. The kingfisher drives its tunnel here, and fox and badger dig their dens into the same slope.
Fragile: Stream “improvement” turns it into concrete and leaves no soil to dig.
Pressure: Building and light at night →The sun-warmed stones of the Ottoman dams work like a small rocky shore. Balkan terrapins bask here and the white wagtail nests in the joints between the blocks.
Fragile: If the joints are sealed completely during repairs, these cavities disappear.
Pressure: Drought →The space under old roofs and between the tiles is the village’s bird quarter. The swallow sticks its mud cup to the eaves, the swift slips under a tile, and the sparrow makes use of every gap in between.
Fragile: New buildings are given neither eaves nor gaps like these.
Pressure: Building and light at night →Mortarless walls and aqueducts hold the day’s heat and do not give it up until nightfall. Green lizards bask on the stone, while jackdaws and kestrels nest in the cavities.
Fragile: A wall rendered in concrete loses both its holes and the creatures in them.
Pressure: Building and light at night →The trough of the village fountain is one of the few places with water all summer. Birds drink and bathe here, the swallow gathers mud for its nest, and the green toad spends the day underneath it.
Fragile: When a fountain runs dry or is closed off, this watering point disappears with it.
Pressure: Building and light at night, Drought →A garden kept free of chemicals never runs short of fallen fruit, worms and insects. The hedgehog works it at night, the blackbird turns over the soil, and tits comb the trees.
Fragile: Insecticide and a concreted surface empty a garden in no time.
Pressure: Building and light at night →A thorny hedge of hawthorn, bramble and cornelian cherry does two jobs at once: in summer it shields nests from cats and jays, and in winter it is a larder of fruit.
Fragile: These hedges are the first thing cleared when fields and building plots are opened up.
Pressure: Building and light at night, Forest fire →A meadow left to grow long fills with butterflies, grasshoppers and countless other insects, and their hunters follow. The kestrel hangs above it and the hoopoe walks among the stems.
Fragile: Early mowing and building work remove this cover altogether.
Pressure: Building and light at night, Forest fire →A soft, south-facing earth bank is easy to dig and warms through the whole day. The bee-eater colony drives its tunnels into it, and lizard and tortoise bury their eggs in the same warm soil.
Fragile: It is levelled and lost during excavation and road building.
Pressure: A forest cut into pieces, Building and light at night →The columns of warm air rising from sunlit slopes are the invisible staircases of the sky. Storks and buzzards climb them without a wingbeat, then glide on to the next one.
Fragile: Power lines and new high buildings are a collision risk for soaring birds.
Pressure: Loss of forest →
