Friday, July 13, 2012
Dorney
It was very wet on the wetlands! An adult reed warbler and a fledgling were seen, the latter already ringed. A lesser whitethroat was singing and a hobby drifted over. A Marbled White Butterfly was seen among several Meadow Browns, and two Black-tailed Skimmer dragonflies were making a mating wheel.
On impulse I walked out onto the common, and over the road to the south side. Just before I crossed the road again a large brown-and-white chequered bird lifted from the ground ahead of me and landed a little way off. Strange behaviour, I thought, for an immature gull. Whoops. It was a curlew.
A woman on a horse cantered by on the path and didn't flush the bird, so I returned to the path. For a while this worked, but as I drew level with the curlew it took off with a heart-stirring call.
The flight shot below is the sort I don't like taking because it was probably my attentions that flushed the bird. However, in my defence I was on the path, and another much poorer shot shows the curlew going down again this side of the trees (somewhere near the stream) so at least it didn't leave the site.
Oddly enough, Greger told me this morning that he'd just heard on the radio of an unprecedented number of migrant curlews for the time of year having been seen at an RSPB reserve in Wales. The theory is that they are moving early because of autumnal weather.
// posted by Christine @ 9:05 AM 
