Monday, July 13, 2015
We drove the length of Britain for three days of summer.
Pagham Harbour was our first stop. The car park was unusually full (I'd forgotten the presence of a Hudsonian whimbrel); and walking along the bank in windy sunshine we batted away questions as to whether we'd seen it, with me denying, in my autistic way, being a twitcher.
We lay on the beach sunbathing and watching Sandwich terns fishing along the edge of the sea; and then set off back, avoiding the overgrown path at the start and picking our way through the supine oaks that would soon be washed by the incoming tide.
Beyond the oaks we paused to watch a bunch of waders flying in the distance. I was just feeling pleased to see my first black-tailed godwits of the year when I noticed a bird among the curlews with no white rump and managed to pinpoint where it went down. I then tried to keep the bird in sight, and followed this one until it got fairly close; I think it's the Hudsonian whimbrel, but I can't be entirely sure. Is the bill long enough, I wonder.
The next morning it felt great to be walking once more up onto the Seven Sisters, looking back across Cuckmere Haven to Seaford Head. England, my England.
This bush cricket was on what I think is ragwort (or maybe Oxford ragwort) but tangled ground cover including brambles made it impossible to get near it, so I had to zoom in from several yards away. It could be a great green bush cricket, but the wings look too short - unless they are still growing. (Later: It's a female nymph of this species.)
Birds included fulmars, ravens, whitethroats, and stonechats. Just past Belle Tout lighthouse and with the end in sight, we saw a bus coming along the coastal road so knew that it would be an hour's wait for the next. It was such a fabulous day, we decided to give Beachy Head a miss and just walk back along the cliffs again.
The downs were alive with male dark green fritillaries, fluttering and gliding over the long grass in a ceaseless search for females and constantly getting into aggro with other butterflies - mostly meadow browns. Eventually I spotted a pair mating, and being visited now and then by inquisitive males which touched down for a nanosecond, realised they were too late, and resumed their manic quest.
Back near the end of the cliffs there were the usual crowds of mostly young people, and the usual acts of bravado and carelessness that make your blood run cold.
Googling something else, I found a Daily Mail report from the end of June. A walker had photographed a dog chasing two sheep to the edge of the cliff, completely ignoring the shouts of its owner - with one sheep finally falling to its death. More research revealed that the owner was later identified. She was fined £100 and forced to apologise to the owner of the sheep. Well, that'll teach her.
For the third day Greger suggested Dungeness; but it didn't appeal. I'd rather forget Dungeness. We went inland instead, to Ashdown Forest on the High Sussex Weald. We walked in three different places and saw redstarts and my first tree pipit of the year. But I couldn't help thinking that this place should be full of birds. There seems to be something drastically wrong with British wildlife.
With rain forecast for the south, we headed north again. Baulked of birds, I snapped the now-shabby, enclosed bridges of four service areas on the M6: Sandbach, Knutsford, Charnock Richard, and Lancaster (formerly Forton) with its added bonus of a futuristic (well, it was then, I suppose) tower. The restaurant in this tower, reached by elevators, was apparently closed because there was no alternative way down in the event of fire. But despite being a mistake, the tower is listed Grade II.
And there was one odd bird: we saw loads of magpies along the motorway, but just south of Stafford Services I spotted a jay standing on the hard shoulder. Which is, I think, a first.
// posted by Christine @ 3:09 AM 
