I have always enjoyed searching games such as “Where’s Wally?”, word searches and spot the difference and today my walk around the reserve gave me both the challenge and satisfaction of these games. I started my afternoon walk in the hope of seeing a bird which many others have sighted recently but one which I haven’t seen before and one which had not been seen today. I headed to North Hide to look for the jack snipe.
The skies were filling with threatening looking April showers so I hurried to the hide stopping only to enjoy the sand martins and to have a search for the goldcrest that had also been spotted by North Hide earlier. Once in the hide I eagerly began searching the reeds and water edges for the jack snipe. I had been warned that these birds are incredibly difficult to spot but I don’t think I really appreciated the enormity of that truth. After a while and no luck I left the hide to go and see if I could see another of my favourite birds; the stone curlew. I must like the challenge of spotting difficult birds because I scoured the area of the field behind the North Wall where I had seen two stone curlews last week (with the help of David one of our guides and his telescope!) for a while. This search proved more difficult than any “Where’s Wally?” I have ever attempted and turned more into a game of spot the difference between a rabbit and a stone curlew. From the pictures you may think that this is a fairly obvious game but at a fair distance and using only binoculars it was turning out to be very hard!
Stone curlew by Jon Evans.
Rabbit - google free images.
It was at that point that my radio went off and reports of a jack snipe in front of North Hide were confirmed from our guide Steve. I hurried back to the hide and up the steps to where Steve had positioned his scope. “It’s just moved and now I’ve lost it!” said Steve. He explained that the jack snipe is astonishingly difficult to spot unless it is moving. It was not. Suddenly Steve spotted it in his scope again and showed me. It took a while for me to see even though I knew it was in view of the scope. The jack snipe gave me a big helping hand by beginning to bob up and down, which they do when feeding. After I had seen him through the scope I watched him for a while through my binoculars and he came out of the reeds to give me a great view, helping me all the time by bobbing up and down.
Although I was given big clues in my afternoon searching game I did feel great satisfaction when I walked back to the office that I had managed to spot such a secretive and pretty bird. I feel I may become a little addicted to this game!
Jack Snipe by Jon Evans.
The trick is to not actively look for the stone curlews - I'm convinced that if they think you want to see them they'll stay hidden! Delighted you saw Jack.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.