Christine's walking & birds blog

On Shore Street we were treated to good views of an Iceland gull cruising round the harbour. As we made our way past the point I scanned the oystercatchers on the beach ahead - but the bar-tailed godwit must have been foraging alone on the camp-site because suddenly it was in the air and flying away to the north.

It soon returned and joined the oystercatchers on the beach, although as we walked on they all flew up onto the grass.

Perhaps they're feeding on worms - or leatherjackets, if they're available. I googled "leatherjacket" and was astounded to find that the first two or three pages of hits consisted of websites telling you how to get rid of these grubs, as they destroy lawns; while birds (the RHS informs you) leave holes in the lawn where they insert their bills. Well I'm blowed. (I'd been hoping for information of a more biological kind, regarding the cranefly and when their larvae are in the ground.) Meanwhile an entry in wikipedia relates that in 1935 at Lord's cricket ground, "several thousand were collected by ground staff and burned, because they caused bald patches on the pitch and the pitch took unaccustomed spin for much of the season". Well, we can't have that, can we? We cannot have unaccustomed spin. I don't see why they had to burn them, though - they could have dumped them somewhere where birds could have had a free feast - but then this was 1935, and no-one then was foreseeing what drastic declines would hit both insects and birds in the coming years.