Martin Walters composes: A Happy Christmas to all our readers, What, I hear you ask, no holly, mistletoe, robins, Christmas trees, partridges, pear trees, turtle doves, geese a-laying, French hens? … However wait, we do have good news about 2 calling birds! Over to you Bob Jarman …
My very first optical devices for birdwatching was provided to me by my grandpa. It was a little monocular with x6 zoom from the Great War 1914-18. It resembled a little periscope that folded open.
I might never ever exercise its initial usage, possibly as a rifle sight or to check out a spy hole in the trenches throughout no-man’s land.
I initially utilized it on a household vacation in the mid 1960s to Ilfracombe in Devon and discovered reproducing stonechats and ravens on the gorse and heather-covered clifftops.
Stonechats remain in the very same household as robins and about the very same size. They consume bugs which they capture in flight from a perch. The males have a black head, an unique clerical and reddish chest, while the women have a duller plumage.
I still plainly keep in mind discovering them, viewing them and hearing their distinct call– a whistle followed by “chack, chack” – similar to 2 stones being struck together, thus their name.
Stonechats can be discovered from Shetland to the Sinai and to the steppes of eastern Europe and usually nest on sandy heather heaths with gorse, like the Ilfracombe birds.
For workout throughout the Covid lockdowns, I cycled around Cambridge. To my surprise I discovered stonechats. They are unusual non-breeding birds in Cambridgeshire.
Out of the reproducing season stonechats normally associate in over-wintering sets. I discovered sets at Hobson’s Park, a set near Eddington, a single male close by, a set along the Huntingdon Road/Histon Roadway walkway, a set on close-by farming land, and at Trumpington Meadows. The majority of them stayed till late March and I hoped they would remain and nest, particularly the Hobson’s Park set, however by the end of March they were all gone.
Records from the Cambridgeshire Bird Club reveal that stonechats reproduced in the county in 2009, which was the very first time given that the extreme winter season of 1962-63. In 2009, 30 county records of stonechats were gotten for the winter season durations, and in 2020 there were 153 records.
Plainly the wintering population is increasing. Throughout the duration 2009 to 2019 single sets reproduced sporadically, however in 2020 4 sets reproduced. This was most likely the little nest that has actually ended up being developed at the Wildlife Trust’s Great Fen reserve near Peterborough.
Maybe Cambridge does not yet have the ideal environment for stonechats to reproduce, however things are altering. If they can overwinter effectively then possibly this wonderful bird will remain and reproduce. Warming summertimes and websites with lots of bugs might simply develop the environment for them to nest effectively and end up being a brand-new breeding bird for the city.
Ravens are getting nearer and nearer! They have actually been seen and heard flying over the city and type close by in west Cambridgeshire. They when had a thuggish credibility and were implicated of eliminating lambs, and persecution kept numbers low.
Like red kites, they are generally carrion feeders and were mistakenly blamed when they were most likely scavenging still-born carcasses and afterbirths. Bad credibilities stay. Over the last 20 years they have actually been slowly moving east.
They start reproducing in early February. I have actually seen them showing over Madingley and near the crematorium and just recently they were reported over Huntingdon Roadway. Listen for their distinct deep ‘cronking’ call.
Throughout the summer season we remained at Southwold. On the beach one day we discovered pebbles that had actually been hand-painted with words and photos. One had actually composed on it “Memories never ever alter”. This has actually troubled me since. Is it real? Do good memories remain good and do bad memories stay bad?
Definitely, my fantastic memories of finding and hearing my very first stonechats and ravens all those years earlier on the cliffs near Ilfracombe have actually never ever altered!
