Mainly white

Monday

I’d paused to work out how many Whitethroats were singing from brambles surrounding a little pond behind Toot Rock. One was fluttering up in song flight straight ahead of me but I could hear another – maybe two, neither visible – from further over. From the small copse to one side there still came the sounds of a Blackcap and a Chiffchaff which have been singing there all day every day for six weeks, backed up by a Wren, a Chaffinch and a Great Tit.

Overhead, the Coastguard Chickens were cackling back and forth between the sheep-grazed turf and their chmney-pot nests while further above them corallini were gliding on pellucid wings.

My attention was caught by a baby Rabbit, as sweet but in better shape than those that arrive on our door-step (or, if the cat-flap remains unlocked, under our bed) which nibbled among a snow-drift of Aspen fluff, in the lee of Hawthorns decked with points and sprays of almond-scented blossom. Just in front of the rabbit, a clear smooth shape gleamed in the sunshine: a Fox’s skull, its sharp teeth no longer a danger.

Then there was another pale point – one that moved in a characteristic, diagnostic way out from the middle of a big Hawthorn and back to the same place. My first Spotted Flycatcher of the year.

What else? Well, on Sunday I saw 80 species in a 3 hour walk (Warning: this list may contain Feral Pigeons but is free of hybrid geese.) All the exciting, dramatic, colourful waders have moved on since we’ve been away but in their wake have arrived varied warblers to occupy their Second Homes on the gorgeous Sussex coast. There were still several Whimbrel and 4 Curlews hanging on as well as that Wigeon (good for bird-racers!) and the Little Gull is still on site. Other than that…Swifts! Cuckoo!  Hobby! er……….

Amazing

I was out in the gloom again this morning, looking at the array of waders which  have stopped over on Pett Level. On the one puddle there were (not in code this time): 106 Bartailed Godwits, 80 Dunlin, 47 Whimbrel, 20 Shelduck, 11 Grey Plovers, 10 Redshanks,  7 Greenshanks, 10 Gadwall, 5 Common Gulls, 4 Ringed Plovers (and another 28 flying over), 3 Ruff, 2 Oystercatchers, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Sanderling, 1 Little Ringed Plover, 1 Golden Plover, 1 Wigeon,  1 Tufted Duck(!) and an imm Little Gull!! …and 2 Common Sandpipers at the Pools. And a Curlew calling somewhere.

With the rising tide. more flocks of Godwits & Grey Plovers were passing over the marsh, calling while the birds on the ground responded. It was very atmospheric.

Alan Parker turned up on his way back to Rye H, having already been there in poor light, so we went to have a look at the Kentish Plover. The new saltmarsh there was packed with waders – just incredible – similar species to those on Pett but many more, including red Red Knot, rusty Turnstones and more than a hundred Ringed Plovers scuttling about all over the place.

Created just a year ago following a decade of planning, this new habitat is proving an astounding success. Some kind people pointed us in the right direction for the KP and after we’d passed several minutes scrutinising Ringed Plovers popping in and out of muddy gulleys, a brown-capped one stuck its head up. It proceeded to Show Sometimes within quite reasonable range, but if you took your eyes off it to appreciate some of the other birds you could easily lose it for a while. I can;t recall having seen one before in this country, though they breed just N of Calais.

If you were planning a Bird Race, this would be the weekend to clean up (though the chances are you’d still get to 6pm without seeing a Mistle Thrush).

May Programme.

I’ve had to change some of the dates and venues and may have to make further changes, so check now and again to see what’s happening!

Puddle puzzle in the dusky drizzle

6.30 this evening found me standing out on the marsh, in a puddle, in the rain, squinting through a telescope and beginning to suspect that my jacket was no longer waterproof. Premature twilight, with low grey clouds trailing soft rain.

Not an encouraging day so I’d been busy doing rainy-day stuff, but luckily coinciding, when I paused briefly on Bexhill promenade to look at the flat grey sea, with a light-phase Arctic Skua at 12.05.

Later on  though a quick scan of some bird sites made me realise a lot of waders were passing through, so I made a sortie to Pett sea-wall. Lots of Swallows and Swifts buzzing over the wall and Pools, one Sand and a few House Martins. No RRS – huh. On the sea, very distant, a line of c50 Scoters. Low-tide sand darkly dotted with a hundred summer-plumage godwits further along. Another cluster of 20 Bartails and 5 Whimbrel in the grass just E of the Pools. And a Wigeon. And a Wheatear.

A scan of the footpath flood showed nothing but a dozen Shelduck and some Gadwall until a sudden ripple of movement resolved itself into a line of smaller waders – of different sizes. I could pick out several Greenshank, some graphic s/p Grey Plovers, then the silhouette of a dusky Dusky Redshank (really, this is a better name – must be since the code is DK) and a whole load of Dunlin at the end, before the Bartailed Godwits started. And some Whimbrel. There were 2 Avocets as well, but they’re just standard these days, another m Wigeon, a m Garganey….

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a variety on a Pett puddle. As the tide rose, waves more Bartails came overhead, some heading off down to Rye. One Curlew with them and another smaller wader with a call I just couldn’t place. Somewhere over in the mist I could hear a Med Gull…and a Green Woodpecker.

Look away now if you don’t want to see the final Puddle List which was: 2AV, 50BA, 1DK, 38DN, 10GA, 14GK, 4GV, 1GY, 2OC, 1RK, 14SU, 2SV, 12WM, 1WN.

Elderly Rook

Our neighbour found this Rook while she was out lookering on the marsh. It doesn’t seem to be injured though the bill is broken, perhaps in its fall from the sky.

There’s evidence of deformity in this toe.

But what makes it more interesting is the potential evidence to come from the ring it bore – worn thin and irregular from age. I  sent off details to Euring but have already heard from Our Man In The Ringing Hut, Phil Jones, who tells me “It was certainly an old bird. It was ringed here (Icklesham) on 31 Jan 1996 and retrapped twice in 2005.“

According to the BTO Birdfacts website the oldest recorded Rook was 22 years old though 6 might be more typical.

I hadn’t noticed previously on this useful site is the detailed list of ringing recoveries which show movements and longevity.

While I’m on the subject, the BTO Demog Blog has some amazing stuff on it – I was especially interested in the incredible easterly return journeys undertaken by Woodcock satellite tagged in this country last winter. (I can’t track this down now but there’s more information here. While we were out in Brede High Woods the other evening I was wondering why there were no roding Woodcock. According to this site there’s been an 86% decline for reasons as yet unidentified.

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Sussex Cattle are back grazing the Woodland Trust’s heath re-creation.

A beautiful evening, warm, still and glass-clear. Tree Pipits and Crossbills already tucked up in bed but lots of song from other birds including Garden and Willow Warblers and, thankfully, Nightingales! There were probably 6 of these along “Nightingale Alley” and another 2-3 up by the road.

Behind the percussive interchange of Nightingales and last twilight trills of Robins, we were surrounded by the mournful hooting of about 6 Tawny Owls.

May Day – more like spring

With overnight rain and a northeasterly wind, I was keen to get out, but had to wait until the drizzle finally cleared around 08.30. It was soon apparent that lots of things had changed: it felt warmer, there were Swifts overhead, Reed Warblers along the canal and screaming Common Terns over the sea. Near Toot Rock I flushed a Little Owl from a hollow Ash stump and 2 Lesser Whitethroats were rattling.

As visibility improved and the horizon sharpened I felt certain that a few crumbs would fall from the bountiful tables of better placed seawatchers but those crumbs were white, tern-shaped and microscopic except for a group of small ducks which landed on the sea just too far away; Scaup? Or maybe just Tufted being divergent. Less challenging were a close Little Tern and 8 Shelduck which flew past up-channel and there were 10 of them still on the floodwater.

There were Whimbrel and both Black & Bar-tailed Godwits behind the roadside pool, 5 Curlews still hanging on but no sign of the previous day’s GK & GP. 2 Wigeon though, a couple of Yellow Wagtails.

Between the Pools and 3 Gates, 3 Meadow Pipits were singing, with another 2 along the footpath towards Newgate, about 5 Skylarks too.

A Cuckoo was calling along the back and at Pannel Scrape a surprising 5 Garganey (4 stunning males) were showing well. As I walked back to Pett from Pannel Bridge, 2 birds rushed past me which seemed so bright and unfamiliar that for a moment I couldn’t think what they were – Turtle Doves! So scarce now but bang on time. when we lived at Toot Rock they would arrive punctually on May 1st. Overnight perhaps, because you’d wake up to the sound of their purring from the power lines in the garden.

87 species in 4 hours – discounted to 85 if you don’t believe in FPs or hybrid goose. About 10 common species missing and the only raptor was BZ.

Hasting Maps

Thanks to the rain, I made a belated visit to Hastings Museum & Art Gallery yesterday to have a look at the exhibition of old maps (on till June 17th).

I wished I had a couple of contemporary maps with me – or satellite images – to match up what I knew on the ground with that shown on the maps, especially one  from mid 18th century (and charmingly decorated with little drawings of giant cattle) showing the Pevensey Sluice where I struggled to match up the embankments and trackways with those I’d walked along.

But the familiar ground of Hastings was no less disorientating when stripped of modern landmarks (eg 75% of the town). I for one did not mourn the loss of the Cricket Ground with its glass-topped walls, but I do wish I could have seen the marshy Priory Stream which preceded it. Another map shows the imposing, isolated Priory House, backed by the White Rock – nothing but a cliff bearing a windmill – and looking across a sandy track to the ducks floating on that stream.

William Gant’s 1852 Survey of the town in astonishing 1:528 detail shows many grand Old Town residences which have now disappeared – demolished and their gardens infilled – just like Pett now.

I should know (you see the uniform houses but it doesn’t sink in) that much of St Leonards was built as one grand estate. An ambitious map to promote the 1860 Eversfield Park project is embellished with a fine and surprising view of Markwick Terrace, looking fabulous, faintly oriental with its towers and porticos. (Was the built design a more modest one or have they been scraped away as too demanding on maintenance?) Victorian gentlefolk disport themselves upon the gracious lawns of Markwick Gardens.

Whiteman’s 1871 New Plan & Panorama (& – the ampersand – was the subject of a R4 programme yesterday) makes the sea front facades look as regular as Hove – once you move west of the Old Town – with open countryside rising up behind then blue, Welsh-looking hills beyond.

In one 19th century map, the area now occupied by Hastings Country Park NR has no woods at all (though you can see in Holman Hunt’s 1854 “Strayed Sheep” that there was at least a wooded bank along the W side of Fairlight Glen).

Airport Madness

I’ve just received this from Lydd Airport Action Group, along with the following message concerning the crazy and disastrous aiport scheme:

Another public inquiry

“This week is the start of the public inquiry for the Shepway Local Plan (returned to its old name – previous government changed the name to Local Development Framework). The Plan now provides the principal planning guidance since the South East Plan has been withdrawn as a policy document. Therefore, it is vital that the policy framework in the Local Plan is “reasonable” in the first place. If the Local Plan policy supports for example, excessive housing development on Romney Marsh, it will be difficult to stop the development when specific planning applications are eventually submitted.

Traditionally Shepway District Council (SDC) has given policy support to Lydd Airport’s development and the Council maintains this support in the new document.  LAAG has already made a submission to the Inspector regarding the inappropriateness of this pro-development policy, given the evidence that has emerged during, and post, last year’s public inquiry.

The airport policy will be discussed on Thursday May 10th – Hearings start at 10am and are held at the same location as the Public Inquiry – Civic Centre, Castle Hill Avenue Folkestone, Kent, CT20 2QY, Folkestone. Note, the sessions will be more informal than the airport public inquiry. Generally participants sit around a large table and the observers sit behind.
 
Another session which might be of interest is Matter 2 which is on Thursday May 3rd (same location)- Housing, Economy and Infrastructure. A disturbingly large housing quota is proposed for Shepway, and particularly Romney Marsh, over the next 25 years. The Romney Marsh quota disregards this area’s inherent special and constraining features – it is an extensive flood plain, a large proportion of the land mass is protected for its ecological value, there is more grade 1 and grade 2 agricultural land than in any other location in Shepway and the Marsh accommodates a nuclear power complex where the legislation stresses that the population in the vicinity of the complex should be constrained. SDC has not given these features due weight.”

 

TQ81W today

Better weather, thank God, and a few Swifts at last in bright blue sky, Common Terns over the sea, Lesser Whitethroats in the blackthorn.

But apart from that…

Ah yes – a Grey Wagtail at the Water Treatment Works.

At lunchtime however I had another look for waders on flood water on the level & found a dozen Whimbrel, 4 Bartailed Godwits, 3 Black-tailed, 2 Greenshank & a Golden Plover along with 14 vigorously displaying Shelducks.