I’ve been building up to a blog over the past week or so: I
was going to detail the various arrivals and sightings over the past week or so
of my daily legally sanctioned stroll from the house along the Devil’s Dyke.
That might have to wait though, as this morning’s walk had more incident than
the past week combined.
I’ve found by far the most effective form of social distancing,
other than just staying in the house, is to get up and out before the joggers,
strollers and dogists have even considered setting out – out here on the
perimeter of the Ely10 circle I’m pretty much guaranteed not to see another
human before 8am. And so it was that shortly after dawn this morning my trusty
Australian sidekick and I were on our usual route, having already encountered chiffs,
‘caps, and a newly arrived willow warbler. Next was a flyover yellow wag and
then the Dyke’s first whitethroat of the spring, jabbering incoherently from a
patch of bramble – this provoked a weary sigh: I like this brief period in early April when I can
enjoy the song of the early arrivals before the whitethroats’ incessant
chuntering and churring becomes ubiquitous along the Dyke, but it looks like this
blissful time is about to end for another year. We put this one quickly behind
us and pressed on to enjoy the relative peace and quiet while it lasted.
The Australian, though a fast learner, isn’t fully familiar
with the patterns of an English spring yet, so I was explaining that at this
time one must meticulously check the blackbirds foraging at the edge of the
sheep fields, just in case one isn’t quite as black as the rest. It was to my
great delight that this tactic unexpectedly paid off in style, as I raised my
bins to the latest dark Turdus just as it turned to reveal a crisp crescent
of white. It proceeded to be most obliging, extracting various worms and
leatherjackets from the short turf as it refueled for the next leg of its
migration. Far better views than those of the lone rouzel to grace the Dyke
last year, and best ever views of the species for the Australian.
Having got the day off to a flyer with this lad, we continued
and, while I was scrutinising a corn bunting, newly returned to its favoured
song perch, the Australian piped up with a query regarding a more distant bird
along the same field boundary. A glance with the bins revealed something that
looked a bit falcony, but not really that much bigger than the chubby bunting. The subsequent scope views duly revealed
a female merlin, peering off across the fields and head-bobbing
enthusiastically at something. With a final nod of confirmation, she was off, tearing low
across the winter wheat with the species’ usual athleticism, bearing down on a
far-off skylark. Eschewing the its larger cousins’ energy-saving, high altitude
approach, it approached in typically gung-ho fashion, hugging the crop, accelerating for all it was worth and
then engaging the lark in an ascending tail-chase. The lark could not match the
merlin’s blistering speed, and was quickly hauled in, but it slammed on the handbrake and
avoided the first attack at the last second by what looked like millimetres. The falcon immediately flared wings and tail and converted its considerable
speed into height, heading vertical before stalling, folding its wings and
dropping back over into a tight loop and a more peregrine-like stoop, but the
skylark was up to the task, evading once, twice, then a third time – to a
chorus of oohs, ahhs and shouted encouragement from the Australian (no friend
of hapless passerines this Antipodean) – before the merlin decided, much to the
Australian’s disappointment, that this was more trouble than it was worth and
gave up the chase.
Pressing on, our next oddity was perhaps the most unusual (and underwhelming) of
the lot, and unlike the earlier birds, a patch tick – a couple of house sparrows, a long way from the
nearest house, that headed off high to the north-west.
Three wheatears, including a really big, bright Greenland type, were
on their favoured fenceline over towards Swaffham Prior, and the last remaining
fieldfare chattered manically away to itself in a hedge by the horse paddocks,
having not got the memo about leaving with the rest of the gang last night. The local kestrel alighted on a nearby fence post, more obliging, if less dramatic, than the earlier falcon; its leisurely flop onto an unfortunate beetle not quite stirring the blood in the same way as the earlier high-stakes aerial pursuit.
Time to turn for home, lest the authorities catch up with us
for overstaying our welcome; the sight of a couple of distant luminous Lycra-clad
joggers approaching in the distance providing further impetus. There was still time for an
unseasonal wandering jay to put in an appearance, dropping in from a very
un-jay-like altitude to one of the hedgerows, before being encouraged to move
on out across the open fields by a couple of local magpies. Finally, on the
last stretch across the fields to home, a group of very accommodating golden plovers
were sitting in the wheat, the first signs of heat haze beginning to blur their
spangled plumage.
To my Peak-trained eye these, like the ring ouzel and merlin earlier,
always seem out of place away from the bilberry and heather, but fortunately
for them, they are under no restrictions on their movements and will be back in
the uplands before long. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the Australian and
me, and this looks likely to be the first spring of my adult life that I won’t
be able to spend some time with the ouzels and merlins, redstarts and wood warblers, pied flycatchers and all the other familiar birds of my youth in the Peak District, so we’re fortunate when we can catch these
passing glimpses of such birds as they pass fleetingly through our lowland lockdown.
