A celebration of birding and natural history, generally within a 10 mile radius of Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, UK.
It would be great if you wanted to share your Ely 10 birding news, experiences, photos, art and video through this blog. Please contact hairyfolkster@gmail.com with your post or to join the authorship, I'll get you on the list quicker than a fly over Alpine Swift.
A once in a lifetime occurrence - a Beluga, the mystical white whale of the high Arctic, taking up a residence in the river Thames!!! Too good an opportunity to miss so after work I headed down the M11, over the Dartford Crossing and into the wilds of Gravesend, Kent. It was a beautiful evening, the river was calm and a steady procession of admirers were dotted along the seawall as just offshore, between the moored barges, the young Beluga fed. Lost it maybe but the estuary is the habitual feeding grounds of this species and it barely moved 100m from it feeding area where it swam against the strong downstream currents. The night drew in quickly and a tremendous sunset added to this very special excursion.
Every couple of years the big farm, G's, that supply most of the UK's salads it appears, flood a couple of fields to rid the soil of nematode worms that can obliterate potato crops if the land is being farmed organically. These temporary floods can be really great bird wise and this year the floods were really close to home at Barway, and easily viewed from the road.
Hundreds of dabbling duck, mostly Teal and Shoveller but with the odd Pintail, Garganey and some fluctuating number of Wigeon congregated and a couple of Crane put in an appearance. Once the pumping stopped, water levels dropped pretty quickly and amongst the hundred Snipe a healthy range of waders appeared. Black-tailed Godwit formed feeding flocks and Ruff were scattered throughout. Dunlin and Ringed Plover appeared but the flood receded to fast for a sizeable flock to form. The best of the scarcer migrants was a Temminck's Stint which joined a Spotted Redshank and Wood Sandpiper which both lingered. It is always a shame when the water has gone and the wait starts again for the next field to be flooded and the hope that it will be both accessible and productive.
Meanwhile on the Washes at Welney a lingering juvenile Montagu's Harrier was finally re-identified as a Pallid and a second bird was found along the Cambridgeshire section. After several afternoon vigils Ben and I did see the bird a couple of times briefly. The following great photo's are snipped off the web.
OK only one young American in this post, but 3 good yankee waders to liven up the marshes. A long staying Stilt Sandpiper beckoned for an afternoon picnic trip at Frampton. It was my first visit here and I left impressed. It was a version of Titchwell, Blacktoft Sands and the Scrape at Minsmere rolled into one. In addition to the Stilt Sandpiper, a Long-billed Dowitcher showed at ludicrously close range but into the light so tricky for photos. Listen to the machine gun fire from the photographers on the Dowitcher clip, you can turn that sound off you know and I did share that nugget with the assembled lens heads - much to their disdain.
The following weekend a juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper hung out on the newly landscaped scrape in front of Welches Dam hide on the Ouse Washes. It was a tricky bird mostly hiding and picking between clumps of vegetation.
At the end of the school holidays we took a week away in Wales with very dear friends. Based right on the coast along Cardigan Bay we spent much of our time by, in or on the sea. Red Kites are clearly thriving and Choughs were seen at most spots along the coast - the coast path north of Aberporth being most productive. Ravens seemed ever
present in the skies and the odd Peregrine completed the Big Four for the area. We watched all at some point over our garden in Llangranog, a nice bonus. A further bonus came when several pods of Bottle-nosed Dolphins performed off the beach at Penbryn. A couple were pretty close in an indulged in acrobatics, leaving the water fully a couple of times.
My first trip to Mid-Wales was in 1984 as a 10 year old child and it took a bit of time to track down Red Kites as there was a very slowly growing population but still well below 100 pairs. I had spent many hours reading and re-reading Roger Lovegrove's Birdwatchers Diary and a Red Kite experience had become a grail for me. When I did see one my reaction was visceral and I went shaky and cried, later in the day we had a phenomenal view of a bird in the valley beneath us near Strata Florida Abbey. On this trip with Red Kites now a common sight in many areas of the UK an unplanned roadside stop near the Abbey still delivered a Red Kite experience to equal that first. The girls needed a break from the windy roads which were inducing some travel sickness, and the whistles of Kites all around had me looking to the skies. Although I could see a few birds soaring I couldn't locate the bird responding well to mine and Erin's whistles very near by. The bird that watched on, eluding me by it's audacity, was in the very nearest hillside tree and gave us prolonged and fantastic views.
We took our leave of English shores in the middle of the sunniest summer since the scorching mid-seventies. We spent a glorious fortnight in Brittany, Vendee and a couple of days in Paris. Our house in Vendee was adjacent and above a small river so the veranda was in the mid canopy of the trees. Firecrest, Short-toed Treecreeper held territory and the tropical fluting song of Golden Oriole woke us each morning. An unexpected highlight was a visit by a Lesser-spotted Woodpecker to our veranda tree and a Honey Buzzard drifted over one morning harried by a Hobby. We ran a moth trap on several nights which was less successful than expected but the girls continue to enjoy going through the catch when there are big and bright beasties to be found.
Further afield every beach had a Med Gull or ten in attendance and a couple of Montagu's Harriers were seen from the car but there was never anywhere suitable to stop and enjoy them. Some Spoonbills, White Storks, Cattle Egrets and Black-winged Stilts pottered around the wetlands and Serins and Fan-tailed Warblers - Zitting Cisticolas in new money, added to the terroir. In Paris our room high in the eves of the hotel afforded views to the Sacre Coeur and also the favoured TV aerial song post for a Black Redstart to rattle and crackle its song.
Summer days spent chasing butterflies in the sun. What a summer we've had and some of our scarcer butterflies seem to have had a bumper year (while a some of the "commoner" species have scarcely been seen at all). Around the Cambridgeshire Woods Black Hairstreak were abundant for a couple of weeks in their chosen woods. They disperse very small distances but hopefully there will be some small gains in range after such a strong flight. Even in late June there were still Black Hairstreaks on the wing when Silver-Washed Fritillaries were evident down the sun bleached rides.
In the Ely10 White-letter Hairstreaks were present in all their regular haunts, Marbled Whites continue to thrive and just a few kilometres south Dark Green Fritillary and Purple Emperors numbers slowly build around Newmarket.
