I’ve been burning the candle from both ends this last week with an early morning breeding bird survey (BBS), our first night-time safari on the year, and 4 am start for our dawn chorus walk. But the arrival of our summer migrants, blooming wildflowers, basking reptiles and the first glimpses of butterflies & dragonflies certainly help make up for the lack of sleep!
My BBS ‘patch’ is Black Wood and the heath so I spent much of the morning making sure that each and every wren, with their unfeasibly loud voices, were noted. I also enjoyed the cheerful gossiping of goldfinches, the bubbling song of the blackcap and of course the relentless chiffing and chaffing of the chiffchaff. It was a beautiful sunny morning, made even better by my first cuckoo, lesser whitethroat and wheatear of the year. My fellow surveyors returned with reports of nightingales, willow warbler, sedge warbler, breeding lapwings and calling redshank pairs.
Redshank by Graham Osborne
Thursday evening was looking promising for our night-time safari with warm and still conditions and as we wandered down the zig zag path we could hear robins whistling away and a green woodpecker occasionally laughing at us. As we approached Fattengates we had a quick burst of nightingale song – a good start. He then kept himself quiet and hidden as we paused for tea, coffee & nibbles in the courtyard. The blackbirds, and there seemed to be a number of them, were rather more vocal and spent several minutes alarm calling to one another clearly annoyed by something. A kestrel flew past which could have explained their unease.
We’d patiently waited for the nightingale to start up again but he had remained mute so we decided to head around to our second ‘hotspot’ at Hanger View. As we walked past he relented and proceeded to sing beautifully for us for 15 minutes or so – rich melodious phrases, occasional frog-like croaks, piping whistles and a sound reminiscent of machine gun fire. Incredible and odd! He didn’t show himself so instead I watched the pipistrelle bats starting to emerge and hopefully start to catch and eat the flying insects that were starting to bite me. Eventually we decided to move on, admiring Venus who was shining brightly in the West, and as we arrived at Hanger View we could hear a calling redshank and more bats fluttering around the canopy of the oaks. As there was no sign of the nightingale, we put on bat detectors and enjoyed the clicks and slaps and raspberry-blowing of a soprano pipistrelle. We rounded off our evening with some star-gazing helped by brilliant clear skies – we followed the pointers of The Plough to find Polaris - the North Star - and the constellation of Leo overhead.
A regular 9 to 5 shift on Friday with limited opportunities for exploring, but a quick peek on the heathland zig zags at lunchtime found me my first green tiger beetle of the year, a blood bee, a couple of spider-hunting wasps and a common lizard. The sunshine is certainly waking up the wildlife!
Green tiger beetle
It was an early start for the dawn chorus on Saturday (the alarm went off at 2.45 am!) but when I saw the smiles on the faces of our guests and our wonderful volunteers when they returned to the centre for breakfast I felt that it was worth it – once a year anyway. I had stayed at the centre to help with the breakfast, occasionally sneaking out to the tea terrace where I could hear the nightingale and the cuckoo and my first common whitethroat of the year. The groups returned around 7.30 am having heard the above and much more – blackcaps, garden warblers, willow warblers, blackbirds, song thrushes and a tawny owl. The tawny owl was even seen by one of the groups as the sun rose.
Blackcap by Graham Osborne
Having washed up, I ventured out to complete a reptile survey around the trail – a couple of adders in one of the off-trail areas, tiny grass snakes under one of the refuges and a toad in a hole beneath another. (You can explore some of these areas with us at one of our Snakehunt events). By the time I reached adder alley, it felt too hot for snakes but was brilliant for butterflies with several smart male orange tips patrolling the ladies smock flowers. The two avocet were swishing in the water of the North Brooks and chasing off any other birds who got too close, including shelduck and black-headed gull.
Time to head home for an afternoon nap! Looking forward to some more new arrivals this week!