A Bit of a Drag chasing The Crag 16th November 2015

Crag Martin at Chesterfield c Andy Last

On the 9th July 1988, early on a Saturday morning, I was ringing a brood of European Stonechats on a beautiful area of  the South Downs called Cow Gap near Beachy Head in Sussex. From a five o' clock dawn that same morning, in the adjacent Whitbread Hollow, I had been tending the nets, extracting birds and ringing them as a member of the Beachy Head Ringing Group. Once things had slackened off I left the others and went to ring the stonechats in Cow Gap as part of my ongoing study of this species.

The weather had become warm and sunny after the post dawn chill and I carefully replaced the four young stonechats back into the security of their nest after placing rings on their legs. Once I had done this I moved away up the slope to wait and check that the parent birds returned to feed their brood and all was well with the nest. I always do this for my own peace of mind.

Further up the slope I sat amongst the ubiquitous downland flora and looked away and out towards the sea. I like to do this as it brings me an inner calm, a peace of mind and just sheer pleasure to be amongst such beautiful surroundings enjoying the simple charm of swathes of downland colour on the huge downward sweep of the slope and the eternal promise of the far horizon out to sea. It is I suppose a form of meditation. Sometimes in our hurried existence we forget what it is to sit still and just contemplate.

It was now eight o' clock. Mind and body had slipped into neutral so to speak but whilst indulging in this relaxed state a small brown hirundine flew close to me, moving across the slope. I looked through my bins and instead of a Sand Martin found myself looking at a Crag Martin.

Now this was 1988, before the widespread availability of affordable  technology that has brought us digital cameras, sophisticated mobile phones, apps, pagers and the like. A two edged sword whose benefits sometimes complicate the simple pleasure of just birdwatching. I was aware of the bird's rarity, knew what it was but did not 'punch the air' or 'shout expletives' and certainly did not feel 'stunned' which is now the rather unimaginative over indulged hyperbole used to describe a birder's feelings on finding a rarity. Nor was I seized with a hysterical desire to get the news out and inform the entire birding fraternity. Birding was very different in those times. Far, far less frenetic and certainly a lot less competitive and triumphal.

I knew I had to take notes and quietly and methodically I did, as the Crag Martin continued to fly back and fore  across the slope below me for the next half an hour. I even did a couple of rudimentary drawings as this is what you were required to do in those pre-digital camera days. Eventually I went over the hill to inform my colleagues in Whitbread Hollow of my find but when we returned at around 9am it had gone.

My original notes of the Crag Martin at Beachy Head

The next day, I think only  a couple of people came to look for it. I was not a twitcher in those days, Beachy Head was just my local patch and study area for European Stonechats, mobile phones  did not exist and I did not ring Birdline when I got home, the only way at that time of disseminating the news, and my bird ringing colleagues only informed those few people they knew would be interested, later that day, and that was that.

I submitted the record to the British Birds Records Committee and received a nice letter from Mike Rogers who was the Secretary informing me that my record looked good but as I  was something of an 'unknown' could I get two well known birder referees to write on my behalf attesting to my bird identification abilities! I was not overly offended and duly adhered to his request and my record was accepted and published in British Birds.  (Volume 83 Number 4 April 1990). It transpired it was the second ever for Great Britain, the first being seen, again by a single observer, Paul Higson, on 22nd June 1988 in Cornwall. Both these single observer records would be highly unlikely to be considered acceptable today without photos and/or other people seeing the bird.

I now move on twenty seven years to 16th November 2015 and  very different circumstances both in relation to locality and reaction to another Crag Martin visiting Great Britain. This individual, the ninth to be recorded in Britain, was to be found in the unlikely surrounds of the industrial town of Chesterfield in Derbyshire and prompted a widespread rush from far and wide to see it. So far it has chosen to remain in Chesterfield for ten days. Crag Martins visiting Britain, mine included, have never remained long in one spot, a day or maybe two if you were lucky and have been consequently hard to see and much desired by birders, so this long staying one was proving particularly attractive. Hundreds of birders have travelled to Chesterfield to see or attempt to see it and many birders have had to make more than one trip to see it as its appearances are unpredictable and on some days it just is not seen at all or only for a few minutes. Some unlucky birders despite multiple trips are yet to see it. A colleague of mine has travelled three times from Glasgow and was finally  successful on his third visit.

It currently has two favourite places in Chesterfield, the £13 million Proact Stadium, home to Chesterfield Football Club  where it roosts in one of the stands and St Mary's Church, famed for its immense crooked spire  and located just a mile or so away from the stadium. 

I decided that I would like to make another acquaintance with a Crag Martin in Britain so made the two and half hour journey to Chesterfield, rising at five in the morning and travelling north before the Motorway became too clogged with traffic. I surmised that as the martin was roosting at the football stadium this would be the best place to start and so I arrived, a little too early and still in the  dark, parking in the huge almost deserted car park around the stadium. I  say almost deserted but already there were a few other birder's cars present and as a cold, blustery and grey dawn rose over the unprepossessing landscape more cars arrived, birders got out and commenced scanning the gaps between the stands for a sight of the Crag Martin.

The Proact Stadium - home of Chesterfield Football Club and temporary home

to the Crag Martin

A familiar figure came into sight traversing the concrete expanses of the car park. Twas Gnome, an Oxford birding colleague. I called out to him and he came over and we chatted whilst waiting for the much anticipated appearance of the martin. Another birding acquaintance, Tony from Watford who shared a twitch with me to see the Cretzchmar's Bunting on Bardsey in Wales came over to greet me and the three of us stood and waited. A Sparrowhawk flap flap glided across the urban landscape, a small flock of Redwings blown westwards on the wind followed shortly after and Starlings used one of the floodlights as a vantage point on which to assemble, with individual birds careering down from the sky in a vertical spiralling dive to land and commence bickering amongst their colleagues already perched amongst the rows of lights.

Birders were now scattered around the car park but there was still no sign of the martin. Then off to our left we saw another birder waving and pointing up into the sky. He could see the Crag Martin and soon so could we but all too briefly. It was zooming around a tall bare poplar tree and for about thirty seconds we admired its chunky silhouette before it shot westwards at great speed and disappeared. Many of the birders present failed to see it. We waited for it to return as it had done on previous days but were disappointed. Today was not like yesterday when it hung around the stadium for a few hours before heading for the church.

I suggested to Gnome that we go to the church as that was its other favoured location and following the Gnome's car I headed for the church and parked in the car park by the church at the top of the hill. St Mary's Church  is truly amazing and rightly famous, perched as it is on the very highest point in Chesterfield, its unique twisted and contorted spire pointing crookedly heavenwards.

The predicted sun finally arrived and illuminated the spire, turning the grey lead  to dull silver. Looking close up at this centuries old spire a sense of  awe and history came over me as its skewed mediaeval construction dominated the urban clutter and traffic jams of present day Chesterfield. Fortunately the church is surrounded by a small area of green lawn and this brings a sense of space and calm from the surrounding chaos of the busy town that now encroaches on all sides.There are many reasons given for why the spire is crooked, some more plausible than others. The latest version according to Wikipedia is that when the spire was added in 1362 the lead covering the spire was subsequently heated by the sun unequally so the south side expanded more than the west causing the lead covering to twist the spire. Incidentally Chesterfield Football Club are nicknamed the Spireites and the crooked spire features on their club crest.

The crooked spire of St Mary's Church

There was no sign of the Crag Martin as we stood and waited. I  was getting hungry and finally weakened and went across the road to Greggs to buy a hot chocolate for myself and a tea  for Gnome, alas succumbing to an offer of three doughnuts for a £1.00 which proved irresistible. I returned to the car park but there was still nothing to get excited about. A flock of Pink footed Geese flew over in a classic V formation, high in the sky, heading East and a Kestrel took up position in the highest of the alcoves in the spire. Time slowly wore on. Tony rejoined us from the football stadium and  Donald my colleague from Glasgow arrived for his second attempt at seeing the martin but with time constraints he was becoming ever more depressed at the dawning realisation that he was probably going to fail yet again.

The Crag Martin putting on a bravura performance at the church the day before

all photos courtesy of Andy Last

As often happens when there is a long wait and nothing to look at we began to distract ourselves with other matters. Gnome became obsessed with Twitter and kept updating me on how many likes and retweets he was getting from his tweets. I shall refrain from comment. I wandered over from the car park to the church grounds to photograph a sculpture of a huge bee which  I had originally mis-identified from afar as a spider. This sculpture has a fascinating history. In 2014 two trees, an ancient 140 year old Elm and a  40 year old Lime, both situated in the church grounds, were brought to the ground by a storm and a local wood sculptor, Andrew Frost, made a huge Queen Bee out of the fallen trunks which now sits forever on the remains of the elm tree stump. Why a bee you may ask? Well a Conference called Pollinating the Peak  highlighting the loss of bees as pollinators, was held in Chesterfield at the time of the trees demise and it seemed appropriate to recognise the bees importance as pollinators by commemorating them with a sculpture.

It's a pity that Defra and the craven Liz Truss, the Tory Environment Minister do not feel the same way and have allowed neonicotinoids, a proven killer of bees to be reintroduced into our agriculture against all expert advice but then when have this arrogant lot of rogues masquerading as a Government ever listened to anything that affects their or their cronies self interest and monetary gain?

The Queen Bee wood sculpture

A minor debate sprang up between Gnome and me about whether another birder was sporting a wig. I said it was, Gnome said it wasn't. The matter was never quite resolved despite scrutiny from a discreet distance through my binoculars although I feel it probably was his own hair but growing in a very strange way. The banter between us took on a more cerebral  tone as Gnome mused on the fact that soon we would all be moving around in driverless cars and we discussed the benefits of this coming revolution. Will there still be such a thing as a driving test was quite a taxing challenge to debate after a long tiring wait in a bird free car park. The conversation, however, soon plummeted back to a lower common denominator.

We watched someone getting a parking ticket from a 'Parking Enforcer' and felt smug. Donald meanwhile was becoming more and more morose about the lack of a Crag Martin and he eventually wandered over to Greggs, never to return. Adam also went over to Greggs and returned with another two hot chocolates and a Belgian Bun. We shared the bun but I let Adam have the cherry on top. It seemed only fair. Yes, it really was that stimulating in a car park rapidly filling with anxious birders, all awaiting the appearance of the errant Crag  Martin. By eleven, almost four hours since we had seen the martin at the stadium, it still had not shown up and I could take no more and left. Gnome also gave up and left shortly after. It was so frustrating as the Crag Martin had put on a great show the previous day, being seen for hours at both its favourite locations. How I wished I was back at Beachy Head and present day birding was a little less fraught.