Best of Bushchat

 

To Explain.....

 

Between 2015 and 2020 I kept a blog I called Eastern Bushchat, a nice play on words I thought in that there is a family of birds called bushchats and I live in the east of England and a blog is all about chatting. Clever eh? If I'd have had a bit more blogging experience and thought a little deeper about the name, I would have included the words 'Bird' or 'Birding' in the title just so people actually knew what it was about, and Google might pick it up on searches. Anyway, I think there was some good stuff published there and before its lost for good, I'll reproduce the best bits here. Hope you enjoy it. 

A Reason Why (18th January 2015)

So this is my blog and you are most welcome. It's not going to be a diary of mundane day by day events (Dear Diary: got up, did bugger all and went to bed): no, the plan is to scribe on these pages my thoughts and experiences of wildlife watching as I move sloth-like through my 59th year of life. And maybe beyond. It won't be exclusively wildlife related; there will hopefully be a richer tapestry here. We'll see. Perhaps a bit of background would be in order.

I quite enjoy writing, I think it is a trait shared by many lovers of wild places and wild things. I first started putting pen to paper (a real pen (remember those) to actual paper as opposed to finger to keyboard) sometime during 1974. In those far off days of my late teens I scribbled a kind of wildlife journal in large foolscap ledger books my father had somehow procured (or more likely purloined) from the Post Office where he worked. My first entry therein was an account of time spent trudging over the marshes between Berney Arms and Reedham one breezy April day. No access to our own car or mobile phones in those days so we cadged a lift to Reedham in the early morning, spent the day getting beaten and buffeted by that April wind that blows unchallenged over the east coast marshes during spring, and arranged to be picked up at 7pm that evening trusting that my father would 1. Remember, and 2. His car would start. At that time the primary goal of my mate John and I was to find and record, for our own ends, as many bird's nests as we could. We jotted down the location and contents of all we stumbled on and kept a kind of league table of what we discovered. Not very scientific, but it kept us amused and without us realising it formed an embryonic love affair with birds, their habitats, habits and diversity.

Anyway I distinctly remember how that day ended with us both sitting on the river wall at Reedham Ferry nursing a well-earned half pint of cider, young, fit and trim yet pleasantly exhausted by our day of scrambling over gates, jumping across drainage ditches and trudging through knee high sedge beds (private property - what's that?). We sat there, my friend and me, listening in the fading light and now still evening air to lapwings 'burbling' their mating cries over the marshes on the far side of the river. Nothing else moved, nothing else mattered. It was one of those evocative moments that stay with you forever and I don't understand how a person can fail to be moved by such an experience. So I wrote it down. And even today when I read the account of that day I'm transported back in time to when a couple of long haired children of the 70s sat together on a river bank as dusk is falling listening to the wild birds call. I wouldn't change those experiences for the world, and I'm so glad I took the trouble to record it all.

In a sense I've never stopped writing about things. I kept those thick wildlife tomes going for many a year and tarted them up with the odd painting or press cutting. During my long and notably undistinguished career with various agencies of the civil service I exercised the power of the biro with gusto, filling many an in tray with meaningless, but well intentioned missives ("think that's a bit too flowery Barry"). After being booted out of Her Majesty's Government for being too old and far too dispensable, I found much, much more interesting employment with Norfolk Wildlife Trust which allowed further expression, this time full of meaning in support of the wonderful work they do. I now write for my parish magazine Sprowston News (what do you mean you've never read it? - subscribe immediately), and I still contribute to the NWT blog when I feel so moved. It's not Shakespeare, but it scratches an itch. So now a blog, inspired by a few friends who have likewise decided to relate their experiences for the world to judge their worth. I hope you will enjoy what follows; I know I'll enjoy writing it. Wonder what lies in store?

A Mid-winter Visit to Ranworth (19th January 2015)

A mid-winter visit to Ranworth seldom disappoints and today it looked wonderful bathed as it was in the rich glow from the low-angle on a January sun.  First stop was to watch people feeding the ducks by the Staithe. Here the mallards are joined by a flotilla of coots, a pair of cantankerous swans and the ever present and watchful black headed gulls. These latter opportunists, visitors from the Baltic perhaps, mug the local wildfowl of their stale bread and buns, swooping and plunging with marvellous ease and sometimes plucking the morsel from the air before it makes contact with the cold water. Most were adults, some beginning to moult into their summer plumage sporting a mottling of brown head feathers amidst plumage of silver grey; one or two were 1st winter birds with smudged wing coverts and light orange beaks. All were hungry, but not for long if the steady procession of young children carrying plastic bags full of promise was anything to go by. The nutritional value of the starch and sugar on offer is debatable, but such activity sometimes represents the first, sadly maybe only, contact young people have with wildlife. If they revel in the frantic scrabbling of the ducks and hoot with laughter when one stands on the others foot in the melee and gets a peck for its trouble, then surely that can only be good? Lifelong love affairs with nature have been birthed from less.

Next a stroll along the boardwalk that leads through the NWT reserve. The wet woodland Carr was at first eerily quiet, seemingly devoid of life, but standing still for a few minutes soon changed that impression. First to show themselves were a small charm of goldfinches quietly teasing seeds from high in the alders above. Closer inspection of the tree tops revealed one or two siskins amongst them and, delight of delights, a lovely pink hued redpoll. A flight of chaffinches cascaded into the lower branches, closely followed by a buzzing party of hyper-active long tailed tits. A tree creeper scuttled up a slender birch trunk and a distant nuthatches fluty chirrup gave a hint that maybe spring isn't too far away. And then a robin, and another and in the distance a third uttered its thin warbling song. There is much to appreciate here; be patient and the wildlife won't disappoint.

Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s visitor centre at the end of the boardwalk, unique in design and an aesthetic masterpiece, was closed for the winter, its anchor chains straining to hold the building steady against the choppy waters whipped up by a strengthening nor-Easter. But good views of the broad could still be had by taking advantage of the specially constructed raised platform nearby. From this elevated vantage point many wildfowl could be more easily seen. Rafts of wigeon had gathered to rest, the chestnut heads of the drakes glowing against the rippling grey water. These visitors from Iceland or Russia will spend much time feeding on the grazing marshes hereabouts, perhaps at Upton where Norfolk Wildlife Trust has made great strides to ensure the low lying floodplain is ideally suited to the needs to wintering wildfowl. Interspersed amongst the whistling wigeon were smaller numbers of teal, shoveler and mallard. Several cormorants, wings spread heraldic, dotted the far shore and a distant marsh harrier battled the swirling air currents in its quest to find an unwary meal to sustain it through another cold winter night. The wind here has nothing to obstruct its path - time to move and seek some shelter.

The walk back to the staithe first took us through the reed bed which although small is well managed for its surprising range of wild flowers and invertebrate life. Of course none of this was on offer today, but what glorious compensation was to be had by the sight of thousands of backlit seed heads dancing candle-like in the breeze. I've tried on several occasions to capture this atmospheric scene with my camera, but have never obtained a satisfactory image; it is only worth experiencing at first hand. It won't be long before NWT reserve staff come along to cut one side of this area of reed to allow important plants like milk parsley, beloved by the swallowtail butterfly, to flourish.

The visit ended with a cup of tea at the church cafe and a walk through the churchyard where a mole had been busy burrowing under the conservation patch. Turn left at the church gate and you complete the circuit. Ranworth is a small village but has a number of year round attractions. It is a well-functioning mosaic with Norfolk Wildlife Trust playing a key role in this true living landscape. Pay a visit, you will be well rewarded.

Praise for the Everyday (21st January 2015)

It's not all about rare birds you know. I can't help thinking that the worth of a bird is too often judged nowadays by its perceived rarity and that this is a big mistake. The danger with this approach is that you risk overlooking the commonplace, your birding bread and butter, in favour of some exotic creature that has lost its way. Much like being led astray by some temptress who flutters her eyelashes; it is but a temporary infatuation. The eyelashes, together with she who sports them, will soon drift away to beguile some other admirer and leave you bereft and forlorn. No, much better to stick to the stuff that made the effort to charm you in the first place, look at it afresh and really appreciate its value. Much more satisfying I feel.

Take the chap I bumped into at Titchwell yesterday. Instead of taking delight in the wonderful birds on show; the brilliance of the shoveler's head gloss, the red shock of the bullfinch's breast, the ghostly, buoyant flight of the innocent looking barn owls, he began lamenting the fact he had 'missed' the jack snipe (most people do). He was talking to me, a complete stranger, and all he had to offer was the negative. What a shame. I don't suppose for an instant he was a bad person, he was simply falling into the trap that seems to affect a lot of birders nowadays (including me at times) i.e. if you don't see everything you've been told is present in a particular place you've somehow failed. What utter tosh!

And then there was the guy at Cley last spring who almost accused me of being personally responsible for the total lack of birds on show (I had my NWT shirt on complete with name badge). This despite the fact we had displaying lapwings, redshanks, ringed plovers and avocets all around us, newly arrived sandwich terns screeching past and skylarks twittering in the sky above. People can be quite strange at times.

Happily we had no such problems at Cley today because as far as I was aware there wasn't a rare bird within a 10 mile radius. But there were some very lovely little chaps on show that although not exactly common, certainly wouldn't merit a Twitch - bearded tits, or reedlings if you prefer (apparently more closely related to larks than tits but who really cares). These rather gorgeous little creatures had decided to stop playing hard to get for a change and parade around in full show for all to admire. And admire we did, and at pretty close range. How wonderful to be able to fully appreciate the bright orange-brown plumage of the male, subtly shading into the cleanest blue-grey head set off by the dart shaped ‘moustache’. Superb little birds. These normally half seen denizens of the reed beds delighted onlookers for most of the day in their quest for small seeds. Blazes of rich colour in an otherwise drab vista.

 

 

Further along the beach I slowly walked along the fence line periodically flushing a female stonechat from post to post. She was a wary little madam who wouldn’t let me approach closer than a four fencepost length to begin with. As we became more comfortable with one another she allowed me to get a little closer teasing me with a quick flit away as soon as I raised my camera. We flirted with one another for the next five minutes before she relented and posed for a decent pic and once satisfied that she had done her bit for art flew away haughtily. Another quite common but very beautiful bird.

 

And then the snow buntings. Jewels that flight black and white as they nervously move from one feeding spot to another. It was hard to get close today; the birds seemed quite edgy although there was no obvious reason for their mistrust. One more unusual, but not rare, species that graces these sometimes seemingly barren shores during the winter months.

 

So, all in all a good days haul, maybe not as good as the carrot cake and hot chocolate in the NWT Visitor Centre, but not bad at that.

Arctic Wanderers (7th February 2015)

One thing we are seldom short of in this Norfolk of ours is wind, especially on the North coast in winter where the cold Arctic air is frequently swept into the county unabated across the broiling North Sea. These winds can be cruel, whipping the mud coloured coastal waters into a churning frenzy and causing destruction to all that dares to challenge its might. We had a bit of a blow on last weekend and the results of that are all too evident at Sheringham where the high water line is strewn with the carcasses of myriad starfish, flatfish, shellfish and sponges. It also seems that a number of unusual gulls have been forced to make landfall here, pushed South by the winter gales.

Some of the 'wrecked' Starfish

 

So, this week I've been trying to track these white-winged nomads as they seek a crust on the strand line between Cley and Weybourne. I've been quite fortunate and with the help of Tom a fellow photographer and volunteer at Cley Marshes, latched onto a 2nd winter bird cavorting amongst many other large gulls west of Sheringham lifeboat station on Wednesday afternoon. This bird did not allow close approach, but was easily noticed from quite a distance thanks to its bright off white plumage standing out starkly from its more brown mottled cousins; the herring and lesser black-backs that are more familiar inhabitants of these parts. On Friday I found a different bird simply by persevering with a walk westwards along the shingle - a 1st winter individual that is altogether more creamy brown, lacking the light grey mantle and flight feathers of Wednesday's bird. These gulls are giving local birders the run around with their restlessness. The promenade, usually deserted in mid-winter apart from the odd dog walker, has been populated throughout the week by groups of blokes in camouflage complete with bins/scopes and cameras pacing to and fro waiting for the specialties to show. Patience usually pays off though....or if you're like me simple blind luck.

  

1st Winter Iceland Gull

 
 

And Again

Pleased with my find, I turned my attention to the high sandy cliffs that tower over this part of the coast where fulmars are busy prospecting narrow ledges for the purposes of nesting later in the year. These tube nosed petrels have become far less common in recent years. Where once a loose colony of up to 200 pairs dotted the cliffs between Weyborne and Overstrand, now only a few pairs attempt to raise their single chick on these fragile, fractured piles of sand. Masters of the air currents it is fascinating to watch these birds ride the updrafts as they joust for prime breeding plots. Their speed, once taken by the prevailing wind, is breath-taking and represents a real challenge for the photographer, but now and again they will stall into the breeze and then the shutter whirls away hoping to capture the essence of this enigmatic ocean wanderer. It's encouraging to know a few pairs cling on to this southern outpost of their breeding range. Let us hope their efforts bear fruit.

 

Fulmar at Sheringham - Lovely Deep Blue-grey wings

 
 

Masters of the Air

 

Literally more down to earth, the aptly named turnstones are amongst my favourite birds and become extremely confiding as winter progresses. Not adverse to tucking into chips and other tidbits proffered by passing humans, their confiding nature make them an endearing subject. They really do turn stones. If you watch them on the shingle beach they employ their upturned beak with gusto as they toss aside the pebbles in search of lice, flies and any other edible morsel. The antics of half a dozen of these smartly pied waders make an audible sound as they march their way across the beach. And they always pose for photographs which in my book makes them star birds. Quite a healthy population spends the winter foraging around the seafront here, and I noticed that they follow the gulls. As soon as the black-headed gulls scream loud and launch themselves towards a source of unhealthy hand-outs, the turnstones pipe loud and whirl off in the same direction. Turnstones will always thrive with their opportunistic personalities.

 

Turnstone Feasting on Stranded Shellfish

 

Aren't They Endearing?

I tried my own hand at hand-outs and was taken aback by the boldness of the black-headed gulls, especially the younger birds that had no fear, pinching the chips from my fingers before I'd had a chance to stuff them down my own throat. I ended up having these agile creatures hovering inches from my face robbing me of my lunch. Guess it's good for the diet.

The Steppe (A Trip to Extremadura, Spain in February 2015)

We found ourselves on the steppe near Trujillo in the chill of early morning scouring the short grassland for signs of bustards. All around we were serenaded by the trills and fluty calls of corn buntings and crested larks whilst on the horizon the odd red kite struggled to gain height in the absence of any thermals. After a few minutes fruitless scanning I happened upon what could easily have been mistaken for a couple of piles of earth at the far end of a nearby field, except that one of these earth piles raised its head to reveal itself as a little bustard. Within a few seconds another bird appeared and then a third, this one a fine male which made for a great start to our day absorbing the delights of the vast emptiness of the plains of Extremadura. But this was just a taste, a tease, of what was to come on this wonderful days birding.

We moved on a mile or so and found ourselves walking along an isolated track flanked by a large expanse of gently undulating steppe. Iberian grey shrikes flitted from fence post to fence post, a thekla lark perched alongside a crested lark offering a text book comparison of their respective identification points, brightly coloured stonechats hopped from stem to stem and lapwings uttered their plaintive calls as we lazily made progress. And there ahead of us we saw them, a group of great bustards haughtily strolling through the sward. We slowly approached their domain but before we reached critical distance were side-swiped by another party, hitherto unseen, taking wing from behind a ridge and flying straight across our path - magical. But there was more. Within a few minutes we had seen both pin-tailed and black-bellied sandgrouse speeding across the plain, distant griffon vultures spiralling skywards on the warming air and then the highlight, a lone black vulture that approached so close it more than filled the viewfinder of my camera. How good can it get?

Better. A lunch stop quickly produced kingfisher, grey wagtail and several overwintering chiffchaffs. More griffon vultures and red kites passed on high and then two larger birds circled closer and these were Eagles, golden eagles, a courting pair. These lovers entranced us for several minutes before passing from view but within a few minutes more another appeared from behind a ridge very low and very big. A pair of Ravens took exception to this massive predator and gave chase, harassing the eagle, mobbing it incessantly as it progressed across the river valley. We hardly drew breath before a yet another, our fourth for the day, flew lazily along the valley giving prolonged and appreciated views to all.

We moved on to another area of steppe hoping for better views of sandgrouse. Instead we were treated to the unlooked for and unexpected sight of a pair of Spanish imperial Eagles engaged in their courtship dance. Beautiful birds. Spring was certainly in the air in central Spain today.

We ended the days birding with a brief stop at yet another area of isolated rolling steppe and within a casual scan of the scope could see great bustard, red kite, buzzard, little owl, larks, buntings, and the ever present lapwings and golden plover. Almost too much even without the azure-winged magpies and hoopoe on the approach to our hotel.

The evening meal was full of talk of today's birds and what delights tomorrow may bring (we're promised many). The hoteliers daughter played beautiful piano for us and the delightful home cooking washed down with a rather cheeky wine rounded it off a treat. I'm enjoying this holiday.

Monfrague

We left our hotel located a few kilometres east of Trujillo just as dawn was breaking. A 45 minute drive through frost covered pasture along mostly empty roads took us to Monfrague National Park. Here we stopped at a viewpoint, Salto Del Gitano (which we're told translates to Gypsy's Leap), overlooking a high rocky outcrop bathed in the crisp light of early morning. Griffon vultures use the cliffs here for breeding and already there were dozens of these large raptors soaring above the ridge. Most were heavily engaged in nesting activity, some sweeping in low across the gorge with sprigs of greenery in their beaks hurtling at breakneck speed towards the sheer rock face only to pull up at the last second and alight beside their chosen nest site on an inaccessible ledge. Some of these impressive raptors would pass quite close allowing us all to fully appreciate their size and aerial prowess, they really are effortless masters of the air and will fly miles seemingly without having to flap their wings at all. Although their habits are a touch unappealing I like them and close to they really are the most handsome of birds. We also saw a confiding blue rock thrush and singing cirl bunting at this site whilst one of our group managed to photograph a short-toed tree creeper that was seeking insects from the cavities in the stonework on which we all stood. Nobody else saw this little bird pecking around our feet because we were all looking up at the unforgettable spectacle of large numbers of vultures soaring to and fro, but you can't win them all. This all made for an excellent start to what would be an exceptional day.

We moved along the narrow winding roads through scrub clad hillsides and rocky scree to another site providing spectacular views of a high rock face where within a couple of minutes we first heard and then saw a Spanish Imperial eagle perched on an isolated branch of a dead tree. How lucky were we? Through the scope we had simply stunning views of this endangered bird as it surveyed its territory from on high. We would have been satisfied with this but the eagles, for there were now  a pair on show, were not done with us and over the ensuing couple of hours put on excellent displays of courtship sky dancing followed by majestic patrolling of the cliff face harassing the griffon vultures just to show them who was boss.

We spent the afternoon walking through some native pine forest finding crested tit and various other small birds before returning to this amazing raptor watch point in late afternoon with the purpose of finding an eagle owl.  It was a long vigil and most of the party were getting a little tired before light relief appeared in the form of a fishing otter. This lively mammal entertained the group for half an hour during which time it must have caught half a dozen fish from the clear river waters. And then just as dusk was falling the eerie, far carrying call of a male eagle owl began to echo off the rock face. Fourteen pairs of binoculars began scanning the boulders for a glimpse of the bird and quite fittingly our leader found it, excitedly pointing to the silhouette perched at the very top of the rock face and calling its mate with evenly spaced single hoots. Elated we drove back to the hotel, late for dinner, very tired, but pleased with a fantastic days nature watching in a simply magical place.