Rediscovering the Joys of Birding
• Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - Stewartby Red-footed Falcon
I was about due for another of my fortnightly mornings off for birding but what with the excitement of the wood sandpiper yesterday evening (which was still present this morning when I went down to check) and the propsect of a day's birding while looking after my son L on Saturday I thought that I would go for a simple little twitch which shouldn't take up too much time. A red-footed falcon had been at Stewartby in Beds for the last 4 days so it was a good candidate for a "quicky". I waited until about 11am to see if it was going to be posted on Bird Guides as having been seen again but although nothing had appeared I had become quite taken with the idea of the trip and had decided to go anyway. If it wasn't there then at least there should be plenty of hobbies to look at.
The journey was 48 miles mostly along single carriage-way A roads and took about 70 minutes, which just shows how slow one's average speed is on such roads. When I arrived there were at least half a dozen cars parked up by the entrance to track across the fields so there was a good chance I felt that the bird was still there - if it had gone people would have been less likely to hang around for it. A 5 minute tramp along a farm track lead to a group of birders with scopes all set up scanning the skies. I asked whether the bird was around and was told that it had been seen several times that morning but that it was coming and going and that right now it wasn't present. It seemed to be a matter of scanning the plentiful hobbies that were flying everywhere for that tell-tale dark grey underbelly of a first summer male. I soon discovered that this wasn't as easy as it appeared: the light wasn't that helpful and often one only had a near-silhouette in the distance. I started watching the hobbies anyway, delightful birds with which I am only starting to become fully acquainted: although I know I saw one as a boy it was a distant blob which someone else had ID'd for me.
All of a sudden one of the more experienced birders picked the red-foot out and started a commentary of what it was doing so that we could pick it up. I thought that I had it but it was still no more than a blob for me before it disappeared suddenly rather close in the bushes to the left. It didn't seem to fly out the other side and we were left somewhat mystified as to where it had gone. It had not been a very satisfying viewing and I was even debating whether I'd actually definitely seen the bird.
After a while there was the distant cry of a raptor and two birds came flying rapidly across the sky towards us. Someone else ID'd them as peregrines and we all got a good chance to view them. It was a good opportunity for me to compare them to the hobbies to see how much more powerfully built they were and to get a sense of their different jizz. I am a great believer in jizz, that nebulous feel for a bird which can often be the fastest way to ID something. After they had gone I went back to acquiring more hobby jizz.
Suddenly a bird flew out of the bushes from the left not to far from us. With my newly acquired jizz radar I could sense that it wasn't a hobby and it even looked different so I called it out to the group as the red-foot which was fortunately immediately confirmed by someone else. We then watched it for about 5 minutes as it hunted insects over the pit before becoming just another blob on the distant horizon. To have appeared as suddenly as it did, it mush have been perched in the bushes not to far from where we were.
At that point I felt that I'd got my money's worth and as time was drawing on I decided to head back to Oxford. When I got back on Bird Guides it was posted as being seen a couple of times though the last entry mysteriously said "...until 14:15 only". I'd left there at 14:00 and was wondering what could have happened to make the poster so sure that it had gone after 14:15 as it had been coming and going all morning often not being seen for some time before re-appearing again. If that was indeed the last sighting then that would have made for a very lucky twitch on my part, seeing it not 15 minutes before it departed. Incidentally the same thing happened with the dotterel that I saw on Bury Down which apparently flew off some 15 minutes after I left.
Another one for the year list and yet another lifer too. Despite my wondering where my next ticks were going to come from I seem to be picking up some nice birds at present. Of course this one was just a twitch of someone else's bird but it was still nice to see.
165: Red-footed Falcon (LIFER) |
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