…………………… and I HAVE kept my word. This week I have been able
to make this blog what it is really meant to be…Bird news. Really? Yes,
really. 10 ticks this week and
garnered some 200 miles apart.
Tuesday
16th April 9.30am, and I meet Chris with her good friends Marion and Paul at
the entrance to Willington Gravel Pits. It’s a bush and tree enclosed narrow
lane, with periodic outlooks over disused pits, so it’s good for warblers along
the pathway. Being early Chris and I had
accidentally bumped into each other at the Willington service station, me for a
Cino, and Chris for a Tea. Except that the Costa machines didn’t do tea.
A nice leisurely stroll down the lane led to a slight
diversion off the beaten track, for me to hear and then see my first Willow Warbler of
2019. Blackcaps could be heard all along the track, and Cetti Warbler, and I did actually eyeball a Cetti
for the year list.
But it was on the second viewing platform that we were to
find (for me the BOD) a Wheatear
on the grass straight in front of us. Not in the most active of modes
but when you think he/she has flown from Central Africa, that’s not surprising.
The Wheatear is a species that I can recall where I have seen most of them in
prior years. One at Lodmoor, near Weymouth… not moving a muscle; one on a bush
at Attenborough GP, in Wheatear field (where else?)..steady as a rock. And this lovely little fellow at Willington
was not in a hurry.
Wednesday
17th April and
Mary and I are off for 4 nights to the Haven Hotel at Sandbanks in Dorset,
overlooking the mouth of Poole harbour.
The Haven Hotel, Sandbanks, Poole Harbour.
If you know Sandbanks (a place where
property is the most expensive in the world for the price per foot.), you will
know that the location is in the middle of a good birding area. For example, Ospreys, that were translocated from Scotland a couple of years ago are already back from their
Xmas vacation in Senegal. The harbour also sports a good population of winter Divers,
and Brownsea Island has apart from the lovely Red Squirrels, a good lagoon
with breeding Avocets, Godwits and resident Spoonbills to name but a few.
Nearby is
Arne, a good RSPB reserve with Sika deer, a café and Dartford Warblers;
Hengitsbury Head, with Christchurch
harbour, catches many passing migrants
That’s the PR
exercise for Dorset!! The Haven hotel is selling its valuable site for
properties, so there is no need to forewarn you about their exorbitant alcohol
costs, because you won’t be staying there!!
Wednesday, leaving
Derby at 10.00am, 4 hours and 200 miles later, we have ticked the Red Kite en route (only 1 sadly)
Thursday,
waiting for the open top bus to take us to Swanage, I’m rewarded with Common Terns (VERY recently arrived, I’m told)
fishing by the ferry crossing. I love
the coast at Swanage, so we walk out to Peveril Point, hoping to tick a Rock
Pipit—failed. But… scanning the foreshore what do I find…..a Wheatear… another
one. Good enough reason to stop for a
Crab sandwich at the outdoor bar by the pier, enjoy the view and to share a nice bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio!!
Friday, our
plan to visit Weymouth and Portland has to be aborted due to hundreds of
motorists deciding to do the same thing. With my local knowledge, we can drop
out of the rat race and pop over to Arne. Cruising up and down Engineers Road
and hoping for a Stonechat we are rewarded by a pair of Linnets dropping down on the verge whilst I map
read. So that’s good.
And that just
leaves my new adventure on Saturday. I am joining the “Early-Bird trip round
Poole Harbour” organised by Birds of
Poole Harbour, starting at 8.00am. As the hotel does not do breakfast until 8
am at weekends, and I need to leave the hotel at 7.15, that’s goodbye to a full
English AND the included Black Pudding. It’s OK, Mary was having a lie-in and I told
her she could have a double-bubble share with my black pud!!
Paul is the
leader for our group of 50 birders on the chartered harbour ferry, and we spend
the next 3.1/2 hours birding round the
harbour, then up the long tapering channel through the reeds to Wareham. Poole
harbour is, apart from the ferry channels, a very shallow harbour, and when the
boat turns at Wareham, we are really churning things up.
Despite the
cold at 8.00am, the wind abated, and my early tick was a pair of Sandwich Terns (another Tern!!) on a mooring buoy.
Mediterranean Gulls were added to the list, but the rich pickings for most of us was
cruising to and fro near the Brownsea lagoon.
If you have not been to Brownsea,
you would not know that non-National Trust members pay for a ferry to the
Island, an NT landing fee, and a fee to enter the Dorset Wildlife Trust lagoon
site. So, it’s
quite satisfying to peep over the wall from the boat – for free!! And our rewards? For me
a single Spoonbill, but for others, Grey Plover, Avocets,
Dunlin, Black T Godwits.
That’s my new
adventure. My 6th different birding-boating experience. Well recommended, and I will do it again.
Paul talked the whole time, but he had a lot of good interesting knowledge,
especially about “their” Ospreys.
When I had
recovered my land-legs, we drove to Hengitsbury Head, still hoping for the
Dartford Warbler. Nope, BUT we were both thrilled to pick up a pair of Stonechats atop the gorse.
And
finally……..4 Red Kites on the home run, but my greatest pleasure was Mary
spotting, twice, an overflying Jay on the A34.
I’ll convert her yet.
Happy
Birding.
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