For a 3 hour walk at Attenborough gravel pits, the participants
in the Library bird club walk on the 30th June, were well rewarded!!
For a start, walking up the ramp to the visitor centre, it
was like Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” being continuously buzzed by a huge
number of hyper-active Swifts – sometimes passing no more than 3 feet away –
phew! Surprisingly, they were confined
to the car park area, and not seen further afield.
They were noisy but not screaming. I can get that around the city walls of
Alcudia in Majorca. In 4 weeks, they
will be going back to Africa. Oh, I do
love that bird, it is well in my top 10.
The next good sighting, and I do mean sighting, was a Cuckoo.
At the end of the Strand near the cricket club, we had to turn back due to a
closed bridge, apparently due to being unsafe. Then we picked up the call of
the cuckoo, repeated several times and becoming louder, so it was calling as it
flew, until it landed in a nearby tree. Only a very short stop and it was on its
way. I’ve heard the memorable call several
times this year, but to actually see the bird was brilliant. (Another one in my
top 10!!)
Being continuously serenaded by Cetti warblers we next
visited the empty bird watching tower hide. A large white head with an enormous
orange beak, sticking out above the reeds was obviously a Great White Egret. It was on the edge of a small stony island on
which we then watched a handsome looking fox, with an edible kill of some sort.
As we watched, there was some sort of confrontation between
the fox and the Egret, with a lot of eyeballing going on, but when the Egret faced
the fox and strongly flapped it’s wings, that was enough to end any dispute!
A nice dry morning walk, only 25 species, and the Cuckoo was
undoubtedly BOD. A pity that only two
people enjoyed these memorable moments.
August walk? To be
decided but Willington Gravel Pits appearsto be a possibility, a venue that
does have a good variety of birds and is
well watched, plus the possibility of Beavers!
Happy Birding
David
