Category: Birds

Just a perfect day

The last day of a week’s holiday, and another day out with the birds.

We started the week at the London Wetland Centre – very cold and gloomy, and notwithstanding recent sightings of Bitterns, we didn’t see any (we always arrive at a hide to be told, “You should have been here five minutes ago; you’ll never guess what we have just seen . . .”) – but plenty of Snipe, Tufted Duck, and Coot.

Wednesday was another cold but bright day at Slapton Ley and on the beach at Thurlestone. Shovellers, Tufted Duck and a solitary Little Grebe in the reeds by the Slapton Hide, and plenty of Canada Geese and more Tufted Duck on the water. Robins everywhere, and a Sparrowhawk through the bushes at the edge of the Ley, upsetting the troupe of Longtailed Tits that was bowling along the edge.

It was late afternoon by the time we reached Thurlestone – we had to stop in Kingsbridge, where I was living when Caroline and I first met, and stop at the deli at the top of Fore Street and visit Pig Finka.  The marshes behind the NT car park were frozen and there was very little duck around. Instead, there were Oystercatchers and Turnstones on the rocks edging the beach, and a wonderful sunset.

Today we have been at Roadford Lake. We didn’t know quite what to expect – we last visited in January 2009, and had then seen little (and been rained on). This time was different: in the woodland and along the edge, Nuthatches, Great, Blue, Coal, Marsh and Longtailed Tits, Greenfinch, 6 Bullfinches and half an hour later another 9, a Greater Spotted Woodpecker chased off by a solitary Raven gliding through the canopy, Crows, Rooks, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk and Buzzard, Dunnock, Blackbirds, a Song Thrush, Redwings, Goldcrests, Robins and Wrens – and on the water, Coot, Moorhen, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Teal, Widgeon, Gadwall, Pochard, Herons, Great Crested Grebes and a Little Grebe, Shag, 3 Goosanders, and in the last light of late afternoon, a pair of Goldeneye below the bridge.

A perfect day.

Thurlestone Rock and a calm sea
From the bridge at Roadford Lake

The boys are back

Saturday afternoon in Yarner Wood: bright sunshine and Pied Flycatchers. Summer is starting.

Yarner Wood is our local patch, and we visit the reserve throughout the year. But our first visit in April is always special, as we wonder whether the Pied Flycatchers are back. It was no different last weekend. The car park was unusually full (we later met the guided tour) and the weather not warm. Some years leaf break will have started; this year the oaks were still bare branched.

At the hide very little, but Caroline suddenly fixed on a male Pied Flycatcher. This was the only bird we saw from the hide, although there was birdsong in the treetops. We took our usual route, along and up, and as we reached Flycatcher Alley, nest boxes every other tree, we heard and then saw more Pied Flycatchers. All male, and in the course of the afternoon about eight in all. Reading the Warden’s notes later, they have been back at Yarner since 8 April.

And as well as the Pied Flycatchers, a Raven high over the wood, a Bullfinch, Greater Spotted Woodpeckers drumming, and all the usual suspects: Chiffchaffs, Great, Blue and Coal Tits, Blackbirds, Wrens, Robins, Nuthatches and Treecreepers. Time stands still in Yarner Wood and by the time we left it was well past six o’clock.

The next day we were having a birthday tea with my mother-in-law. Her garden was alive with bird song, and she knows Summer is back because the Swallows, who have been nesting in her garage for the past 15 or so years, have returned. We stood and watched them, a fast glide and down below the lintel and up and out of sight.

All we need now are the Swifts.