Report from Stapleford Bird Club |
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| The February walk round the
Magog Downs started with bright sun and a cool near-freezing breeze. Initially
some of us were excited because we were joined by one of the original walkers
from 2000 - a rare species! Was he a jinx though, because as we walked up the
side of the down towards the low sun there was no bird movement in the
trees/shrubs on our left nor over the adjacent chalk down. And the walk up
through the Magog Wood produced only a few calling
chaffinches, and the usual
woodpigeons in the ivy of the older trees. Things got
better on the hill however as we were cheered by the sight of a perched then
gliding
kestrel. The wood also then produced a song thrush, robin, magpies (2), crow, collared dove and further chaffinches. Blackbirds were present by the old parish pit, but somewhat disappointingly the set-aside adjacent to Jane's Piece produced nothing. However the neighbouring fields were proving to be ideal feeding grounds for several flocks of fieldfare and redwing (mixed), too numerous to count, but estimated at some 300 – 500. Beyond these, and again in both the south down arable, and the adjacent fields there were large gatherings of gulls. These were predominantly black-headed gullswith a good sprinkling of lesser black-backed. Difficult to count but we estimated that in total there must have been in excess of 1000 gulls. On the south down arable, one of our “gull experts” spotted 3 common gull. This is I think a first for one of our survey walks. But the best was still to come. As we continued down beside the arable land, from seemingly nowhere, a flock of approx 300 golden plover appeared and treated us to a whirling flight display, with some of them giving their soft peep-peep call. A few landed briefly nearby, but the main flock disappeared as quickly as it came. A group of jackdaws appeared from Wandlebury and as we turned northwards we were treated to the odd blue tit, great tit and long-tailed tit. The sheep pasture was still providing feeding for fieldfares and redwings, together with a small flock of starlings. On the walk we saw only one wren, 3 skylarks and 5 meadow pipits. In all we noted 24 species. Our next foray will be on Saturday 1 March at 8.30 am. Why not come and join us? Brian Ellis |
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| Updated : 17 February 2008 |