Corona Wildlife Diary: Day Eighty-one
The Back Garden Bird Race will be tomorrow, Sunday 7 June (10-11).
All the information, rules, I.D guides and downloadable phone app is on the Bird Race website here. You can leave your results in the comments section below today's diary, on the Facebook page or in the phone app. Bird race in style with our snazzy Back Garden Bird Race t-shirts (here)
Day Eighty-one
Tomorrow is the tenth Back Garden Bird Race. I've really enjoyed these weekly bird races during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The birds that I've been watching in the garden have been a soothing distraction from the chaos beyond the cul-de-sac. So I thought I'd dedicate today's blog to my garden birdwatching highlight of the past eight years since we moved in.
On July 27th 2015 I was rushing to get ready for work. With my shirt in one hand and some toast in the other I walked into my front room, looked out of the window, put the toast in my mouth… and froze. There, in my suburban Sussex garden, was a Turtle Dove. The Turtle Dove froze too; our eyes fixed on each other. Time stood still.
Back in the late Seventies, when I was just a little lad, my bedroom wall was covered in Star Wars posters. Representing my other childhood obsession – birdwatching - was a picture of a Turtle Dove. I really don’t know why I had torn out and pinned up this particular page from my battered Reader’s Digest Book of British Birds but I guess way back then the bird must have had the same appeal for me as it does now.
(Photo by Andrej Chudy)
Turtle Doves are gorgeous birds; blushing pink, with ornate chestnut wings and a piercing red eye. But for me there was something alien and exotic about my Turtle Dove pin-up. I had learnt that Turtle Doves are summer visitors to Britain returning each spring from their wintering grounds in West African countries such as Mali and Senegal. They bought back with them the romance of distant deserts, oases and dusty palm groves.
(Photo by John Bean)
But to a lad growing up in South Devon these birds might have well have existed in a galaxy far, far away because in all my birdwatching adventures through the woods and farmland of the South Hams I had never seen one. The little bit of text on my Turtle Dove poster told me that they were most frequently encountered in a far-off lands such as somewhere called Sussex.
The text also informed me that their soothing, purring song is ‘the sound of an English summer’. When I first read this my young mind imagined the magical land of Sussex where Turtle Doves purred from every hedgerow and summers were more, well, summery than in my doveless Devon. I often wonder if this image of Sussex played a subconscious part in my decision to move here in the early nineties. I was certainly straight out looking for Turtle Doves when I arrived. One of the first places I visited was Sussex Wildlife Trust’s Woods Mill nature reserve. It was just as I had dreamt, I could hear Turtle Doves singing from the hedgerows. And what an amazing sound; an omnipresent ‘turrrrr, turrrrr, turrrrr’ that invades your head and massages your brain.
(Turtle Dove at Woods Mill. Photo: Romney Turner)
It is a sound that has soothed British people throughout the centuries and has inspired writers, poets and lovers but now, during our lifetime, it is at risk of being silenced forever. Since the Turtle Dove shared my bedroom wall with Darth Vader in the 1970’s the bird’s British population has fallen by a staggering 90% with the population going into a dramatic freefall in the past decade. Five years ago the Turtle Dove was added to the list of birds considered to be facing the risk of global extinction. If we lose the turtle dove we lose a part of our culture and identity.
And so there I was, a boy from Devon, half-dressed with a slice of toast in my mouth staring at a Turtle Dove in my own little garden. A bird on the edge of oblivion, feeding in the seeds from the wildflower meadow I had planted. We regarded each other for a few seconds then, in a blink of an eye, it flew up and over the fence.
It landed momentarily on next door's corrugated shed roof and I managed to get this one photo to prove that it had actually happened.
Comments
Is that why you moved from Devon to Sussex? It seems funny that we sing about them at Christmas when they are summer birds! I think it is beautiful. If you could be any bird, is this the one you would want to be?
M: Hmmm, that's a good question Ginny-Vic. If I could be a British Bird it'd be a Water Rail. That way I could just hide away all day and occasionally make a noise like a pig being strangled.06 Jun 2020 08:24:00
Yes childhood memories (well before your time Michael!) of nature walks with my mum on Thurs afternoons (my primary school had school on Sat mornings instead!?) down overgrown disused railway tracks in Suffolk and always the purr of turtle doves…
06 Jun 2020 14:02:00
Bird Challenge: full team resulted in our PB! 18 species: wood & feral pigeon, robin, blackbird, collared dove, starling, house sparrow, goldfinch, blue & great tits, ring-necked parakeet, green woodpecker, gull – HG or LBB, too high to distinguish, swift and last but definitely not least peregrine and red kite!
07 Jun 2020 10:14:00
Walberton – equalled my best with 23. The highlight was a lovely male kestrel who circled above my garden. I heard my first song thrush of the bird race and for the second week running there were no blue tits! There did seem to be a greater variety of birdsong this week. Thank you very much for organising the bird race.
greenfinch
wood pigeon
house sparrow
magpie
robin
starling
rook
goldfinch
blackbird
jackdaw
dunnock
crow
pied wagtail
buzzard
herring gull
collared dove
wren (heard)
song thrush (heard)
swallow
great spotted woodpecker (heard)
kestrel
chaffinch (heard)
swift
07 Jun 2020 10:24:00
Very quiet today. Just 11 species:
House Sparrow, Herring Gull, Jackdaw, Blackbird, Great Tit, Collared Dove, Robin, Blue Tit, Magpie, Woodpigeon, Chaffinch
07 Jun 2020 10:25:00
Chaffinch
Blue Tit
Blackbird
Jay
Coal Tit
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Wren
Wood Pigeon
Robin
Garden Warbler
Magpie
Goldcrest
Marsh Tit
Long Tailed Tit
Carrion Crow
Nuthatch
Goldfinch
Spotted Flycatcher
Jackdaw
Total of 19 seen or heard in Brightling Garden. Nothing in sky, but an excess of young Great Spotted Woodpeckers and two Fallow Deer behind the fence.
07 Jun 2020 10:27:00
Hi Michael, Beautiful cloud formations this morning and much brighter day than yesterday. 24 bird species (2 heard only) recorded from here in Barcombe:
Blackbird
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Woodpigeon
Collared Dove
Pied Wagtails (taking food to nest on neighbour’s roof)
Blue Tit (up to six together on peanut feeder including juvs)
Great Tit (including juvs)
Goldfinch (including juvs)
Jackdaw
Buzzard (3)
Song Thrush (heard only)
Greenfinch
House Sparrow
House Martin (5)
Robin
Swift (including loose flock of 20 flying NW)
Herring Gull
Dunnock
Rook
Starling
Kestrel
Cormorant (distant)
Wren (heard only)
Linnet
A distinct lack of Water Rails – don’t suppose you’re interested in filling this vacancy (ref your earlier comment)?
Thanks, Simon
07 Jun 2020 10:29:00
From a sunny garden in Mannings Heath. Not quite as good as last week. Only 18 species. Highlight was a fox. Bird List
Blue tit, Coal tit, Great tit, Marsh tit, Nuthatch, Robin, Dunnock, Blackbird, Chaffinch, Carrion crow, Jackdaw, Magpie, Wood pigeon, Collared dove, Great spotted woodpecker, Buzzard (being viciously mobbed by two carrion crows),, Pheasant (heard but not seen) and Goldcrest (heard but not seen)
07 Jun 2020 10:31:00
Woodmancote. 7 th June
18 species
Robin
Jay
Swallow
Crow
Blue Tit
Great Tit
House Sparrow
Wood pigeon
Grey Wagtail
Dunnock
Jackdaw
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Gold Finch
Greenfinch
Blackbird
Chiff Chaff
Pied Wagtail
Mallard
07 Jun 2020 10:43:00
Highlight today in Cuckfield… Two male bullfinches feeding on herb robert seeds…
16 birds today. Bullfinch, chaffinch, blackbird, Robin, dunnock, wood pigeon, collared dove, carrion crow, jackdaw, coal tit, Great tit, blue tit, goldfinch, magpie, house sparrow, nuthatch
07 Jun 2020 10:43:00
Birds seen in our garden in Horsted Keynes Sunday 7 June 10.15 – 11.15:
Great tit
Blackbird
Sparrow
Collared dove
Pidgeon
Crow
Goldfinch
Magpie
Wagtail
Bluetit
07 Jun 2020 10:43:00
For the first time I carried out the Bird Race on 7 June and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately certain birds I do see in my garden were not present during the 1 hour observation period. I live on the West Sussex-Surrey border and saw the following birds in my medium sized back garden within a semi rural environment:
starlings
jackdaws
house sparrows
robin
wood pigeon
collared doves
coal tit
blue tit
great tit.
07 Jun 2020 10:54:00
Back Garden Bird Race 7 June 2020
Disappointing lack of raptors apart from 5 resident Buzzards.
28 species in total;
Chaffinch, Whitethroat, Blue Tit, Meditteranean Gull, Jackdaw, Black-headed Gull, Robin, Magpie, Goldfinch, Buzzard, House Sparrow,Heron, Woodpigeon, Cormorant, Stock Dove, Swift, Linnet, Blackbird, House Martin, Dunnock, Carrion Crow, Rook, Herring Gull, Wren, Cormorant, Great Tit, Mallard, Starling.
07 Jun 2020 10:59:00
A very busy garden in rural Crowborough, this week.
Great views of parent feeding two newly fledged Great Spotted Woodpeckers.
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Magpie
Nuthatch
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Wood Pigeon
Gull
Jackdaw
Robin
Song Thrush
Blackcap
Carrion Crow
Chaffinch
Blackbird
Bullfinch (pair)
Buzzard
Green Woodpecker
Jay
Pheasant
Wren
Stock Dove
Dunnock
Coal Tit
23 species
Thank you, Michael. This is a very enjoyable event to be part of.
07 Jun 2020 11:04:00
17 species at Heathfield. A first (bird race) Swallow today.
Wood Pigeon, Blackbird, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Greenfinch, Herring Gull, Goldfinch, Jackdaw, Swift, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Goldcrest, Swallow, Starling, Magpie, Robin, Buzzard.
07 Jun 2020 11:07:00
Lowest score so far here in Rye, just 17: Herring & B.-h. Gulls, Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon, Collared Dove, many House Martins, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, Magpie, Rook, Crow, Jackdaw, Starling, House Sprog, Goldfinch, Chaffinch. No raptors this week, and hardly any birds singing now.
07 Jun 2020 11:13:00
Bob, you put Cormorant in twice! Makes you 27, still way ahead of me!
07 Jun 2020 11:19:00
20 species today in Brighton. First race to not get Dunnock.
1. Herring Gull
2. Blackbird
3. Goldfinch
4. Collared Dove
5. House Sparrow
6. Chaffinch
7. Greenfinch
8. Starling
9. Jackdaw
10. Woodpigeon
11. Feral Pigeon
12. Wren
13. Carrion Crow
14. Long-tailed Tit
15. Blue Tit
16. Magpie
17. Swift
18. Robin
19. Great Tit
20. Coal Tit
07 Jun 2020 11:21:00