Saturday, May 17, 2008 - Crossbills at close quarters
As I've mentioned previously in my blog, I was starting to wonder where my next ticks were going to come from. Fortunately this doesn't seem to have stopped my seeing some great passage birds to keep things "ticking over" but I felt that I was going to have to be a bit more pro-active in seeking out new stuff. A reader (thanks go to Robin Dryden) had recommended going south to Berks to explore some of the heathland habitat and had been kind enough to supply me with details. Today I had an opportunity to take advantage of this information when my two daughters were off to guide camp and my wife was going to look at some art with her sister leaving me with my son L with six hours on our hands. I decided to go down to Swinley Forest (aka Crowthorne Wood) which is a mixture of heathland and coniferous and deciduous forest. My target birds there were: tree pipit, wood lark, redstart, spotted flycatcher and wood warbler with dartford warbler and crossbill as possible bonus birds. I'd been recommended the site Birds of Berkshire which has excellent write-ups of the various localities and I studied it well before the trip.
The journey from Oxford down to the site took about an hour and a quarter which would leave me with three and a half hours of birding time before I would have to set off again to pick up my daughters from the camp. I used the journey time to swot up on my target birds using a CD that I'd made the night before of their calls and songs. By the time I reached the location I reckon that I had a pretty good idea of most of them.
I put L in his all-terrain push chair and we went through the entrance gate to the forest. It was a very interesting mix of coniferous and deciduous trees with some open scrubby areas all growing on a sandy heathland soil. As I started walking through it, initially there didn't seem to be much showing at all, it all seemed very quiet. I found though that it was a matter of "tuning in": the birds were well hidden and at that time of day weren't singing openly so one had to be alert to quiet contact calls and also to keep one's eye's peeled for the slightest movement. I'd been given some instructions on where some firecrests had been seen the week before so I started off trying to find that location. I think I got it right but there were no calling birds there at all. Further on I heard loads of goldcrests and treecreepers but alas no firecrests (which I would have been most pleased to see).
I soon found Caesar's Camp which is the central location of this area but there was a problem in that the push chair wouldn't fit through the gate. I debated unpacking it all and lifting it over but decided instead to press on elsewhere and possibly to come back later. I therefore chose to start wandering down the various paths keeping alert all the time. Up till this point all I'd seen were a treecreeper and a coal tit and a few chaffinches. I came to an area where I heard the high-pitched call of what I was pretty sure was a goldcrest. As I'd not seen much so far I thought that I would see if I could see it and I started peering up into the branches, looking for movement. At that point I did see movement and I put my bins to my eyes, expecting to see a goldcrest but instead there was a large greeny-brown finch hopping around. As I tried to make it out I saw a second of a lovely reddy/scarlet colour and I started to get excited as there's only one finch of that size and colour that I knew of. I looked to see if I could see the bill to clinch it and yes, there it was, a fantastic male and female crossbill from only about 5m away. The pair fed quietly and confidently just above us for several minutes, nearly dropping half eaten pine cones on our head. I'd been very lucky as they weren't calling at all and if I hadn't been looking for the goldcrest I would never have found it. At this point L was starting to get restless so I took him out of his pushchair and we decided to have our picnic lunch by the side of the path as I continued to watch the birds until they moved on.
Now that I'd seen such a great sight I was more relaxed about whether I was going to see anything else: even if I saw nothing further I would be well satisfied. So I decided to let L walk for a while. This would mean slower progress but it was unfair for him to be either cooped up in the car or stuck in his pushchair all day, he needed to stretch his legs. We therefore ambled along, L stopping to pick up interesting things and to wade through muddy puddles whilst I listened intently for birds. There were willow warblers, chiff chaffs and blackcaps/garden warblers singing, and we heard a distant cuckoo and both green and greater spotted woodpeckers. There were also lots of tits all around us and I realised that I am not that good on distinguishing them. Blue and great tits have so many calls that I more or less just lump them all together and leave it at that. I also discovered that chaffinches can make a wide variety of different calls: many times I traced a strange call back to a chaffinch doing something a bit different!
We reached a natural turning point and I started to consider going back when at that point I heard a call that I recognised from my CD this morning. I looked around and there above the trees was a fluttering spiralling bird in its song flight, unmistakable a wood lark and a most excellent find. Most pleased with this I was just starting to head home when I met a fellow birder coming the other way. We got chatting and he turned out to be the author of the Birds of Berkshire web-site! I told him how useful I'd found his site. He then asked whether I'd like to see either a redstart or a wood warbler, both of which were located close by and of course it would have been rude to refuse his kind offer! He showed me the location and sure enough we almost immediately heard the trill of a wood warbler. It was rather elusive and we spent some time trying to see it. I caught a couple of brief glimpses of it flying around but decided that I need to start heading back as I couldn't afford to be late for the pick-up. I thanked my companion for his help and left him waiting patiently for a decent sighting so he could take a photo.
By this time L was back in his push chair as he was starting to feel rather tired. This meant that I could walk at a fast past and I soon got back to Caesar's camp. I debated making a quick dash round there but this would have meant being rather rushed and in the end I decided to head back at a leisurely pace, keeping an ear out for calling firecrests (which I didn't find). The journey back was uneventful and in fact I managed to arrive 20 minutes early for the pick-up.
So I'd managed two of my target birds with a bonus crossbill as well. I was very pleased with this effort but resolved to return to see if I could find more of these species in this interesting habitat. I might even contemplate an evening session with the possibility of nightjars or woodcocks though the logistics would mean getting back to Oxford very late. Interestingly enough the first two year ticks were also lifers for me (I wasn't sure about whether I'd seen the wood lark as a boy so had erred on the side of caution) and so continued the recent run of Lifers. At this rate I'll soon have my life list up to a more respectable total as befits someone of my age rather than its current boyishly low figure.
There was also a pair of sanderlings to add to the list which had arrived at my local patch on Port Meadow the previous day. Given that there were so many birders there looking at the Temminck's stint they were soon picked up and I managed to get down to see them within an hour of their first being spotted.
167: sanderling
168: crossbill (LIFER)
169: wood lark (LIFER)
170: wood warbler
|
|
Post A Comment!
|
Sunday, May 18, 2008 - well done the lifers |
| Posted by Anonymous |
| crossbill is a great bird to get as a lifer - so weird looking |
| Permanent Link |
|
About Me
I used to be a birder in my youth but rather lost interest in my teens as other things became more interesting. However recently I've rediscovered this interest and would like to share my sightings and thoughts in this blog.
Friends
|
