First it was to be the furthest, Parkend village green in the Forest of Dean for Hawfinches which feed below the venerable yew trees that encircle the green and in whose dark and mysterious depths the Hawfinches delight to secrete themselves before dropping to the ground below to feed, along with the ever present Chaffinches.
It all sounds ideal but in fact the site is far from that.There is, nowadays almost constant disturbance be it from dog walkers, delivery vehicles, trail bikers, runners and even birders - you name it.The only hope of getting good views of a Hawfinch on the ground is to get to Parkend before dawn and hope you will have a small window of opportunity when the birds come down to feed before the disturbance gets too much. I have tended to avoid coming here for some years now as it gets immensely frustrating and a severe trial of one's patience and equanimity. Birding such as this is meant to be for the most part a relaxing, pleasurable pastime but watching Hawfinches at Parkend is certainly not that.
Parkend used to be very popular with birders coming to see the Hawfinches and in order to get a prime place beside the yews you had to arrive before dawn and wait for daylight to come. I assumed nothing had changed so for me it required a 5am start from my home to be in position by 7am just as the sky commenced to lighten
Hawfinches despite their mean, butch appearance are shy birds and generally they do not arrive in the yews at first light so I expected little until the daylight intensified and so it proved. I was surprised but pleased to find I was on my own with no other birders present in their cars. I should, in passing point out that it is essential to remain in your car if you wish to see the Hawfinches on the ground.Remain in your car and they can at times come very close but get out and they immediately flee to the tops of the highest trees available and will reman there for a long time.
The light steadily improved but it was going to be a dull and overcast Saturday.The sun would definitely be a stranger.Blackbirds commenced chasing each other around under the yews then a few Chaffinches dropped to the ground and searched for seeds in the grass and leaves.
As I watched the Chaffinches another bird caught my eye as it dropped to the ground to join them. A quick look through my bins and yes, a huge head and bill making the bird look almost top heavy confirmed the presence of a Hawfinch. Their top heavy appearance is due to the head having to be large enough to accommodate powerful jaw muscles that can exert in excess of 50kg of pressure, enough to crack cherry stones. Its dull colouring indicated it was a female.I considered taking an image but the light was far too dull to allow for anything passable so I watched it for a minute before to my immense frustration a man who had parked his van on the road nearby decided to walk past me and around the green.The Hawfinch along with the Chaffinches flew up and away. It was 7.55am. I never saw the bird again but with the man having returned to his van, at 8.15 another Hawfinch descended and this time it was a much desired and more colourful male.
Their colouring is exquisite. A head of pale chestnut orange with a black eye mask and bib and an ivory white bill, merges into a dove grey neck. A brown back and white wing flash complement blue black wing feathers with frilled ends to the inner primaries.Underneath its breast and flanks are a pastel plumbeous pink.Not forgetting bubble gum pink legs and feet. A total and utter delight. I watched it feeding and then it flew up into the yew disturbed by I knew not what but my luck was in as it soon dropped back down and now came much closer to the car.
I commenced taking as many images as possible aware that a dreaded dog walker was approaching.I had to make the most of it and estimated I had a minute at the most before it would fly off. Dog lady duly arrived and the Hawfinch departed.
What can you do? I decided to wait and see if any Hawfinches would return.The subsequent hour transpired into a severe and unrewarded test of patience as there followed plenty more dog walkers, runners, the man from the van returned for another aimless walk around the green and then a birder who should have known better got out of his car and walked under the yews. Unsurprisingly he saw nothing.The final straw came as a dozen ladies with walking poles and an instructor arrived and commenced strutting around the green practicing their nordic walking technique.
Yes I know it's not anyone's fault and I am annoyed I allowed myself to inflict such a frustrating and unsettling start to my day of birding.The one positive from all of this was I had seen both a male and female Hawfinch if only briefly. My first of this year.
I could take no more and was glad to depart Parkend.I really do not think it is worth the effort to ever return to here again, at least to see Hawfinches.There are other less taxing places to see these charismatic and appealing birds.
My next destination was Slimbridge WWT which required a fifty minute drive to get there doubling back over the River Severn and through the outskirts of Gloucester.The main aim of my visit was to see a Glossy Ibis which had been present for a few days, feeding in a wet field right by the main car park and by all accounts allowing exceptionally close views.
On getting to Slimbridge I passed a group of birders/photographers clustered round the metal gate from which you could view the ibis feeding in the field. I drove further on and parking the car got my gear together and walked back to join them confident that I too would imminently have some nice images of this unusual avian visitor from southern climes.
Is the ibis showing? I enquired of one of those present
It was but has just flown off I was told.
Not a good start but I knew from previous reports that the ibis was prone to do this but usually returned to this, its favourite field, eventually. In the meantime I headed into the grounds to check on the other more unusual birds that had been reported recently such as a Spoonbill and a Green winged Teal as well as an out of character showy Water Rail that was coming out into the open below the bird feeders at the Willow Hide..
I made for the Willow Hide first to find the Water Rail and encountered one other birder there who told me it had been showing well but had now vanished into the reeds. This began to sound rather familiar!
Five minutes later despondency was banished when the Water Rail re-appeared and to say it performed beautifully would be an understatement. It showed little of this species highly strung demeanour and customary fear as it brazenly picked at the seed being spilled onto the water below the feeders by the visiting tits and sparrow
I gave it fifteen minutes and then left to look for the Green winged Teal but checking in all the hides no one knew of its current whereabouts as it had not been reported since it was last seen 'showing well' from the Martin Smith Hide on Thursday. Having already seen another drake Green winged Teal on Otmoor RSPB in Oxfordshire earlier in the week I was hardly distraught although it would have been nice to see. Unbeknown to me it was in fact close by in the grounds on South Lake but it was not reported until after I had left.
I.went in search of the Spoonbill which was at its regular haunt of South Lake and as Spoonbills often are, fast asleep at the far end of the bund that runs out from the hide.With little prospect of it doing anything, least of all waking up it was pointless remaining here and so I left the grounds and headed back to the ibis field hoping it had come to its senses and wherever it had been had decided that the wet field really was the best place to be.Even if it was not there I planned to wait in the expectation that it would return within the hour.
As I approached the gate I could see a number of people gathered there and this was surely a good omen. Sure enough on getting to the gate there was the ibis feeding in the company of a few scattered Rooks.
Glossy Ibis, indeed most ibis species are such strange looking birds, almost prehistoric as if from another age.Any sign of glossiness on this bird was difficult to make out due to the heavily overcast conditions and the fact it was a young bird in its second year of life.I could just about discern some dull purple gloss on its upperbody but to all extents and purposes this bird was an overall featureless very dark brown apart from its head and neck which were grizzled with many greyish white flecks.
However this was a good bird to see and to get on my year list so no complants from me.
I feel reasonably confident in predicting that Glossy Ibis will soon join the ranks of Great, Little and Cattle Egrets and commence breeding in this country, sooner rather than later.They are occurring increasingly frequently in Britain and this bird is by no means the first to have found Slimbridge to its liking. In fact the first Glossy Ibis I ever saw in Britain was here at Slimbridge when on the 20th April 2007 a flock of 17 no less, arrived on the grounds and remained for a number of days. At that time Glossy Ibis were a major rarity and many people travelled especially to see them. One would have been notable but a flock was unprecedented. How times have changed.
With my main mission at Slimbridge accomplished by lunchtime I was glad to be able to leave as Saturday was possibly not the best day to come to this enduringly popular venue which always seems to be able to attract so many visitors especially on weekends.
From Slimbridge I would now be heading east to my third and last birding venue, a place called Hawling which lies at 250m elevation on the western slope of The Cotswolds. The target here was Short eared Owls. I had already been once this winter to see them and met with some success, see here so Hawling being but a minor diversion from my route home would round the day off very nicely indeed, spending an afternoon watching and photographing the owls as they hunted over the thirty hectares of fields set aside for them by the local farmer. Apparently these fields are not sprayed with any chemicals which allows a healthy population of voles to thrive and as a consequence attracts the owls to spend the winter here feeding on the plentiful voles and being able to roost undisturbed in the expansive fields of rank and dead grass. Owl heaven!
Hawling and these now immensely popular fields with their attendant owls has attracted some adverse comments due to the fact it is now so well known and brings so many visiting birders and photographers wishing to see the owls. The main objection seems to be the resultant disturbance that is inflicted on what is after all an attractive and relatively isolated rural location albeit only twelve miles from the spa town of Cheltenham. Hawling, although not named in the programme was recently featured on BBC 's Winter Watch which certainly will increase the likelihood of more people visiting.The numbers of cars parked on the narrow verges can be exceptional on the two single track roads that border the set aside fields and in this wet winter the verges have been badly chewed up by the cars and some cars have even become stuck in the mud and had to be towed out.
However these are public toads and anyone has a right to use them and to park sensibly and enjoy the owls.Photographers come from far and wide and I have met some from Liverpool and others from Yorkshire. Provided everyone behaves sensibly and do not trespass into the fields but stand at the side of the road and watch the owls from behind the dry stone wall which protects the fields then I see no reason to complain. The numbers of people present each day could in fact deter any potential trespassers who allow their desire to see the owls get the better of them
The owls appear unconcerned about the numbers of people and as can be seen from my images below can come quite close at times provided one stands quietly and remains still.
I was pleasantly surprised to find no more than a dozen cars parked beside the road on my arrival and left my car on a wide grass verge to walk up the road to view the fields, one on either side. At this higher elevation than Slimbridge, almost a plateau, some 250m asl a chilly wind blew across the bare fields and farmland stretching for miles in all directions
Despite the people present there still remains a lingering sense of remoteness here, enhanced by the presence of the owls and one can essily find an isolated spot where the spirit of the land can take over and the presence of fellow humans is temporarily forgotten.
On leaving my car I could see that an owl was already hunting over the field to the left and made my way up the road to find a place where I could stand in isolation by the dry stone wall and wait for the owl to come closer. In fact there were three owls silently floating over the dead grass, some times distant at other times much closer.
The owls possess long, relatively narrow wings that effortlessy carry them a few metres above the grass.Their flight is slow but powerful, the wings beating jerkily on the upbeat but slower on the downbeat creating a distinctive image, interrupted by the occasional hover.Tilting from side to side gliding and forever moving across the fields they quarter relentlessly around and around in a parade of soft feathered. silent elegance
For the most part that is all they did but on two occasions I saw one stall and dive head first into the grass
For much of the time as I watched them the owls were continuously searching for their prey but on one occasion an owl met with success and rose with a vole in its talons, no doubt to be carried away to be consumed somewhere more discrete but it had been seen and was almost immediately accosted by one of the ever present Carrion Crows, forever on the look out for the chance of an ad hoc meal. To make matters worse for the owl, the crow was rapidly followed by a kestrel yet another opportunist all too keen to rob the owl of its prey.The trio rose higher and higher into the sky, the owl doggedly twisting and turning unwilling to release its prize. The Carrion Crow was not equipped to tackle the owl's talons but the kestrel had no such qualms and engaged the owl talon to talon attempting to seize the vole from the owl's clutches
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| The vole falls to earth pursued by the crow! |
In the struggle the vole fell from the owl's talons and the crow saw it frst as it fell to earth.The kestrel was a fraction too late and despite plummeting vertically to earth at an incredible speed the crow had got to the vole before it and the kestrel wisely conceded to the crow and its formidable bill now carrying the unfortunate vole.
I am sure this episode is re-enacted countless times here over the winter and sometimes the crow will win and other times the kestrel but more often the owls will get to eat their meal in peace
I have seen this hijacking of the owls a number of times and find myself wishing that the much larger owl would retaliate and teach the crows and kestrels a lesson but they never respond and always lose out in such encounters.
With a relatively large number of owls, at least eight, in this restricted area there are inevitable conflicts.What sets one owl off against another is a mystery as sometimes they seem content enough to maintain a respectable distance from each other when more than one is flying at the same time but occasionaly one owl will emit a sharp athsmatic wheeze of aggression and fly at speed towards another. Invariably the conflict ascends upwards into the sky and after a bit of chasing and even talon grappling at times, subsides and both owls resume their hunting
It was towards the mid afternoon with the light beginning to fade even more on this day of continuous grey, that after one such interaction one of the combatants broke off and circling in a gentle glides and soft wing beats slowly descended to earth and pitched into the grass of the field on the opposite side of the road.
It settled close. almost in front of where I stood, alone. It then rose and proceeded to fly around the field a number of times, coming close each time it flew past me before once more settling in the grass next to a tussock that sheltered it from the wind.
It sunk its head into its shoulders, fluffed out its feathers and closed its eyes in repose.It was obvious it was going to remain as such for some time. Should I remain or take this as a cue to depart? I had many images to be satisfied with and there was little more to be achieved.
The cold in this exposed part of The Cotswolds was becoming increasingly irksome, my limbs stiff with standing and so I decided that it was time to seek the warmth and shelter of my car and drive home
My day in Gloucestershire had reached a natural conclusion, my spirit elevated by my encounters with wild nature.
