Mike Toms of the BTO gave a great presentation about gardens and birds at the Cambridgeshire Bird Club last night (14 October), but during the interval, much of the chatter was about all the migrating birds arriving on the East Anglian coast in the previous couple of days.
Short-eared owls, great grey shrikes, and even a rufous-tailed robin had turned up. Plans were being made. I was sitting next to Pam, one of our volunteers, who just smiled and said “something rare will turn up at Fen Drayton Lakes tomorrow”. Well, we had to hope so, as that was where we’d be.
How right she was!
Heading to the car park this morning, I met Dennis, who had seen two bitterns and three bearded tits – a promising start to a beautifully sunny autumn day. Arriving in the car park, I heard some chirping – a familiar sound for me, but not one we expect to hear at the car park.
I checked through binoculars, to confirm my hearing – a female house sparrow. Fantastic! It is almost two years since I saw a sparrow at the car park, and that was a tree sparrow, a rarity in these parts.
A common buzzard drifted over us a little later, quite low and looking perfect against the bright blue sky. A great photographic opportunity, but only one visitor was there with a camera. Pam and I said something about how easy a rough-legged buzzard would have been to identify at such a close range.
Richard came to do some birding in the afternoon – he has a knack of finding rare birds, so we wondered what he’d find today. We suggested a blackbird, as no-one had found one all day.
At the end of the afternoon Richard returned to the car park, having just seen a rough-legged buzzard flying over the eastern end of the site – out of view from the car park.
So, Pam was right twice, and Richard again lived up to our expectations.
To cap the day, we had a wonderful display by starlings as they gathered and flew around in their shape-shifting ways, backlit with an orange sunset.