SPOTTED'S SPOTTED, SO NOW IT'S 99 . . .
Dunstall Park, August 18th 2013
10.15 to 11.30, westerly breeze, broken clouds, warm.
Yes, as Chris, Kevin and Gareth are proving by example, the great migration is under way, and the valley is starting to become a fly-through route for huge numbers of passage birds on their way to their wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. Would love to join the dawn-watch boys and risk a stiff neck, but even though the spirit's willing, a run of late nights means the flesh is somewhat weak. So, mid-morning checks on a few favoured stopping-off sites for migrants may be the best option . . .
Down at Dunstall it's all quiet on the lake, with one of the juvenile
Little Grebe still present, preening and washing near the Smestow brook run-off. A female
Shoveler feeds in the shallows, a typically wary female
Teal angles fast and low round the island and disappears, a pair of
Moorhen feed with their four spindly-legged dark chicks around the base of the shoreline vegetation, and two
Grey Wagtail fly in to pick their way along the edge of the water. Forty or so
Starling, mostly juveniles, sunbathe on the island bramble bank as a
Coot half-heartedly pulls spiked aquatic grass around its feet to form what appears to be a breeding mound. They've had a great year, but this might be a nest to far. There are mewing calls from the canalside oak copse near the Water Bridge, and a
juvenile
Common Buzzard emerges to flap its way on to the nearby television tower. At least one immaculately plummaged youngster has been roosting in the copse for some days now, and using the tower as a perch, it calls incessantly as it awaits the arrival of its parents. On this occasion it leaves, and, mobbed by a
Crow, disappears low along the line of the canal. A few minutes later a rather ragged adult Buzzard flies in the same direction, and soon afterwards possibly it and two other birds are circling in the warm air over the hawthorn wood north of Hordern Road as a female
Sparrowhawk flaps and glides her way over the lake towards the Farndale housing estate (she may well be one of a pair that have been feeding two vociferous young hawks for the last fortnight just to the south in Newbridge wood). All quiet along the western edge of the racecourse, so on towards the north west corner, where a bank of elderberry, bramble and hawthorn always proves fruitful at this time of year, attracting warblers and other small migrants in the late summer and early autumn. The berries aren't quite ripe yet, but twitching leaves reveal juvenile
Blackcap and
Bullfinch, while
Goldfinch, Wren and
Robin song and the distinctive contact calls of young
Chiffchaff show that other species, including
Greenfinch, Blackbird and
Blue Tit, are present. Suddenly, a slim grey shape projects itself from the top of a bare branch, twisting upwards and outwards into the sunlight, then darting back to the same shaded perch, the bird sitting alert, grey-streaked forehead, dark eyes switching, scanning, waiting for the prey that gives it its name, our first
Spotted Flycatcher for the year, and our 99th species for 2013. In the late 1980s at least four pairs bred between Newbridge and Aldersley, but there was a dramatic crash in the number of returning adults in 1990, and soon afterwards the species was extinct locally as a breeding bird. Nationally numbers have plummeted in the last two decades for reasons not yet fully understood, so any glimpse of this delightful visitor (its grey-brown plumage suggesting flour led to its Northamptonshire nickname of White Baker. In Kent it was the Post Bird) is now a bonus. It was the icing on the morning's cake, and I didn't have to get up early . . .
(NB. Dunstall Park is a restricted commercial site. Access is strictly controlled).
WHAT A GEM AS WE HIT THE HUNDRED!
Compton barleyfield, August 19th 2013
10.30 to 12.45, westerly breeze, broken clouds, warm.
Yesterday morning's outing gives incentive for another migrant search, this time to a site which in the past has provided the "fringe habitat" for a rather special species which can be seen annually in small numbers as it passes through the valley. So, today's target is a bird that only last week featured on the BBC Radio's Tweet of the Day series, a species that on migration loves the edges of grassland and other open sites, feeding in low bushes and along hedge lines. Just as yesterday's bank of sunlit vegetation on Dunstall Park provided cover and food for small passage birds, so the line of hawthorn and elder bushes along the old railway side of the barleyfield may, fingers crossed, draw down our target bird. At first there's nothing, it's calm and hot, mid-morning, a feeling that it's now too late for much to happen, but stick to it, check the bushes again, but still no movement, if anything's about it's staying well hidden. Then, suddenly in the middle of an elder bush, a reddish-orange patch underneath a black visor topped by a striking thin white line. We're in luck, and it's a full adult male, a gem of a bird looking out over the shimmering waves of brown grass, our first
Common Redstart for 2013, and the 100th species to be recorded along the valley this year. It's elusive, twice disappearing only to reappear some minutes later further along the line of bushes. A
Chiffchaff flies at it suddenly (how aggressive this little species can be on migration) and it drops on to an umbellifer stem, sideways on, its orange tail quivering ("start" is from "steort", the Old English for tail. Regional nicknames have included Fanny Redtail, Fire Tail, and the wonderful Yorkshire tag of Flirt Tail). A dog walker approaches, unaware of its presence, and the bird flies up and away over the banks of blackthorn towards the old railway. I rather think it's gone for good, but what a star in passing . . .
