Drumming Hearts and Dartford Songs: A Birding Weekend

 Friday – A New Hope

As February faded in a blaze of glorious sunshine, my soul seemed to awaked from its winter permafrost like a Snowdrop bursting into the new season. It truly felt like Spring was finally on its way at last. The winter months have been super tough for me this year, but the sights, smell and sounds of nature have kept me going as always.

As I finished work on Friday, the late winter sun was beaming down on me, I couldn’t resist stopping at one of my favourite places nearby for the first of what I hope is a great many, evening nature walks! I pulled into the little car park of Buriton Chalkpits on the Southdown’s and eagerly hopped out of the car. I was greeted by the explosive, repeated song of a Song Thrush echoing through the valley from the ancient woodland above me. A Blackbird added its flutey notes to proceedings and the two Thrush species continued with their serenade as I got my bins out the car and put my coat on.

With the light dropping, I walked down into the trees of the chalkpit site. The clay lined pond that had been repaired last year, now has a fence surrounding it to keep people and pets out, vegetation is starting to emerge from its depths and around the margins and banks. I cant wait to see how this grows and matures. A pair of Mallard sat on the still water watching me closely as I passed. Bubbles issued from the deeper parts of the pond and a small silhouette wriggled to the surface for a gulp of air, a newt! Great to see them recolonising this habitat again. No frogspawn yet, but no doubt this will come!

Entering the forest loop, the leaves of Lords and Ladies were springing up everywhere, Wild Garlic(ransoms) are also pushing forward with their spring growth, although markedly behind those in other parts of the country. On a recent visit to Slimbridge WWT, the ransoms are already well established around the Zeiss hide and the heady smell is delightful. A mixed flock of Tits with Blue, Great, Marsh, Coal and Long Tailed, marauded through the low canopy looking for food and chattering loudly. Only the Coal Tits stopped to sing though, the others all buzz and churring with alarm and contact calls to each other. A treecreeper found itself mixed up with the gang and was happily feeding away amid the flock, its high-pitched contact call higher than all of the Tits it was associating with. Another high pitched call and I spun around to come face to face with a singing male Firecrest in the Ivy that had wrapped itself around a Birch. These diminutive woodland sprites are, happily, regular breeders now in the south and I am aware of at least 2 possibly 3 territories in this woodland alone from previous years.

Its sad to see that the Forestry commission have had to remove so many large Ash trees from this wood due to Ash Dieback. The signs have been creeping in for a number of years and another area within the vicinity, has been cleared in recent years. Thankfully, the underlying scrub and young Hazels have grown up rapidly in the space and light left by the felled Ash trees and much of the wildlife has moved back into that area. It will be interesting to see the change in dynamic in this new area of work, something I will be monitoring and documenting in the coming months and years. This particular stand is dominated by Ash and so the work seems particularly stark and destructive. Time will tell how it affects the ecology though.

Thankfully, the Spotted Flycatcher territory nearby has not been massively affected. The nest tree and its accompanying Ivy growth are untouched as are many of their favourite perches and hawking spots. Mercifully the nest has been on the back of an old Birch for the last 4 years and many of the afore mentioned perches are old oaks and as such have avoided the chainsaws.

Walking back up the hill towards the car, a Green Woodpecker was yaffling in the distance, and I chuckled to myself. I find it incredible the lift I get from light evenings and from sunlight. I felt like I had finally made it through the dark months and today was the turning point. That promise of renewal, hope and better times on the horizon!

Saturday – Woodland Nymphs and Siberian superstars.

Saturday started much as Friday had ended and with it came March. Dawns rosy fingers crept over the horizon, painting everything it touched with fiery orange. The temperature did not match the suns hues however and the mercury stayed firmly in the blue end for much of the day.

Picking friends up at 0630, we headed into the New Forest for a yearly pilgrimage. A annual audience with one of the forests speciality species and a real life woodland nymph, the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. Coats done up high and gloved hands clutching steaming cups of coffee, we headed down the gravel path towards the traditional alter, the drumming tree!
This bare, dead and almost entirely hollow tree, rises like a beacon from the surrounding forest, but it is still the drumming that gives away the males’ presence way before you clap eyes on his perfect, dainty form. We took up our vigil in a clearing that had a great view of the tree and settled in to wait as the bird had flown moments before we arrived. The wait wasn’t that long and within 10 minutes in he bounced again, that undulating flight, unmistakeably Woodpecker! He alighted just below the top and sat preening for a moment, before turning his head, pausing and then drumming. The 2 second burst of percussion filled the still morning air and seemed to reverberate off every tree like 5.1 surround sound. A smile cracked my face, big toothy grin as I turned to my companions and made a heart gesture with my hand, as I did, I noticed each of them had the same cheesy grin on there faces too! No matter how many years we come back for this spectacle, its still incredibly special and fills our hearts every time!

The bird stayed for 10-15 minutes, drumming in the sun, backed by the powder blue sky. In between his percussion solos, he sat, listening for any reply, calling now and again with the high pitch ke-ke-ke-ke. After 15 minutes in swept another Woodpecker, not the female our drummer was hoping for, this was the much larger Great Spotted Woodpecker! Although a great comparison of the two species side by side, it was not to the liking of the male Lesser and after some aggressive wing stretches and calling, he flew off into the forest. A distant drumming confirmed he was trying his luck elsewhere!

We headed to the east of Hampshire next, where, for the last week, a Russian and Siberian breeding Thrush, a Black Throated Thrush, has been happily feeding in the extensive gardens of a house in Linford. The homeowner had graciously allowed people to enter the grounds to see this ‘first for Hampshire’, and with the help of local birders had decided to start a collection for a local hospice as payment for access. I really enjoy arrangements like this, as it feels like we can give back to the local community while still thoroughly enjoying our hobby!

Naturally, it was a veritable who’s who of Hampshires birding community and it was great to catch up with some friends I haven’t seen for a while. I have heard afterwards that over £500 was raised for the charity which is awesome.  The Thrush was a beautiful male with the black throat really evident even in the mist that was hanging over the area. Redpoll, Siskin and several other finch species all feeding on sunflower seeds at a well stocked feeding station also added even more enjoyment to what was, already a pretty awesome morning!

After the Thrush, we shifted down a few gears for the afternoon. We spent it at Thursley Common, just over the border into Surrey. This stunning Lowland Bog and Heath reserve is famous for its Dragonflies in summer as well as some speciality heathland species such as Dartford Warbler, Woodlark and Nightjar as well as some other awesome species in and around the woodland fringes such as Tree Pipit, and Redstart in Spring and Summer. With migration not yet underway for many of these species, it was the two resident species, Dartfords and Woodlark that we were keen to see, as well as keeping our eyes peeled for Lizards and Snakes enjoying the sun. As we walked down the hill from where we parked, all of us quickly realised that the temperature had climbed and the coats we were all wrapped up in, we were all baking! We shed these and they got tied around waists or tripod carriers for safe keeping.

The reserve was quiet in the early afternoon still, a Wren broke the silence with its machine gun trill and explosive song as we passed close by. Stonechats called quietly, like two pebbles being gently tapped together, but the birds remained stubbornly out of view which is unusual. Five Buzzards and a Red Kite drifted lazily in the thermals over the woodland in the distance, calling as they circled relentlessly higher before heading off over the horizon and out of sight. I was the first to pick up the call we had been waiting for, the creaking contact call of a Dartford Warbler just down the track a little, we paused and looked around through our bins, no sign of the bird on any of the gorse or small pines, but they were nearby. Out on the open heath, we could hear the distant song of a Woodlark, very hard to pinpoint at this range, but clearly coming from the direction of an area known as Parish Field. We headed over towards the area the song had come from, but still couldn’t see where the singer was.

On the path that runs parallel to the field, I noticed some movement in the grass and what was clearly a Lark species, flying low over the bird on the floor. A glimpse of song and three Woodlarks took to the wing, all singing and calling at once, goaded on by the bird that had flown over. We stood and watched them for a good 20 minutes, seeing them foraging, singing from the top of anthills and occasionally scrapping with another bird. A Dartford Warbler was singing from just outside the field, so we returned back to the path and scanned the heathland. There he was, sat in typical Dartford pose, on top of a gorse bush, throat quivering with the movement of the beak, long tail held up behind him as he belted out that scratchy song!

We wandered around the rest of the reserve, enjoying the peace and the sunshine, when we got to the moat car park at the far end of the reserve, Matt and I offered to go and get the car, while Jo and Emma sat in the sun by the lake. We had an awesome ‘therapy walk’ chatting about our mental health and various things in our lives, I really appreciated Matts candour and love that we can talk like that to each other! Men don’t talk enough to each other about things and this is so good for us!

Sunday – Coastal birding aboard the struggle bus!!!

Sunday morning I was boarding the struggle bus. We had a few drinks on the Saturday night and apparently I had a few too many for my head to cope with on Sunday. Matt and Emma were picking me up at 10:30 so I stayed in bed until 10 to gather in as much sleep as possible! When they arrived, I was ready in full hangover attire, an oversized hoody, hood up and a pair of dark glasses! To be fair, I just felt very tired as opposed to actually hungover so a day on the New Forest Coast was an excellent idea to blow the cobwebs out and enjoy the incredible weather.

No target species as such, just a nice days birding with friends, although the New Forest always delivers with incredible wildlife! 16 Spoonbills, 4 Slavonian Grebes, Spotted Redshank, Red Breasted Mergansers, Greenshank, Merlin and Eider were just some of the 76 species we saw around Pennington and Keyhaven. I have come to realise that the Hampshire coast, more than rivals North Norfolk in terms of the variety of species we see even if we don’t have the same propensity for attracting unusual migrants during passage. The sun shining, Wigeon whistling and Brents cronking made for a very happy James as we mooched around the coast. On leaving the coast, we headed back via a known Little Owl territory to see if the birds were sunning themselves in the warmth of the setting sun, alas, they were not but there will always be another day to see them!