Please let organiser know if you are coming to assist with access through forest drive barier
Wear shows with good grip as boards can be slippery. Binoculars useful but not essential.
There will be bacon butties and coffee at the end of the walk.
Please let organiser know to assist in getting access through forest drive barrier.
8 people managed to get up to hear the dawn chorus at 0500hrs over the weekend. Birds seemed slightly different to last year, such as more Blackcaps and fewer marsh tits. A brief view was had of a Tawny owl again and Grey wagtails put on a splendid show as we got back to the car park. It was then off to ‘The Kennels’ for coffee or tea and bacon butties splendidly put on by Louise.
What an evening. After and inauspicious start with a gusty wind and mist occasionally rolling around it did not seem likely to be god for nightjars. Standing in the wind we had one brief ‘hear’ of a Woodcock only and by 9.35 it looked bleak. Walking further down the track into a more sheltered area we soon heard the ‘cwick’ of a flying bird on the clearfell to our left partly hidden by trees. Some of us ventured across some heather and brash to get a better view the other side of the trees and were soon rewarded by a male streaking low across the clearfell and ‘bouncing’ a second bird. The light was still good at this stage. There was quite a bit of churring then from at least two birds and one flew up from the heather between the two groups, possibly a female. We all gathered again on the track and had some good views of flying males. A lot of cwicking from the clearfell caused some of us to venture back through the small band of trees only to have a male bird come to rest on the ground some 10m away, fluffing out its tail and wings showing its white spots. The light was good enough to see all the details of its cryptic markings. To make things better it then did a quick flit right past us and settled on a log some 6m away completely unphased by our presence. Still flicking its tail and wings it then moved from the log to a small twig above still flicking away its wings and tail. After some 2-3 minutes it took flight and did some nice low passes over the whole group. While this was going on another male was giving the goup left on the track some really good views as well. Re-uniting on the track the birds continued to fly about and chur from various points around the enormous clearfell. On at least one occasion there was three birds churring at the same time. It was good to hear a lot of display flight wing clapping and its ‘clockwork toy running down’ chur. Mapping all the churring there are at least 4 males on the site and possibly 5.
It was sad there was only 5 of us there to see it.