Little Owl, Felbrigg Park – my first breeding record of the year
It was ‘Duck-count Day’ this morning – not that the summer months produce a lot at Felbrigg. Still, I was pleased to be out in the early-morning sunshine. I’d just finished scanning the water-meadows (one Moorhen being the total count!) when a distinctive shape flew through my peripheral vision – it was a Little Owl, which perched briefly on a tree-guard before flying up into an Oak. Even on those brief views I could tell it was a youngster – my first breeding record for the park this year. I did manage to track it down and find an adult at the same time. Further on towards the lake another shape flew up from the fence-line – this time it was a juvenile Cuckoo! Having only heard or seen adults a couple of times in the whole park this year I’d pretty much given up on finding any youngsters. As I approached Boathouse Bay there was an unusual muted squawking coming from the reeds – it turned out to be an agitated adult Reed Warbler. It may be complete conjecture on my part but, as this species is a main host for Cuckoo, could this have been a locally bred bird? I guess we’ll never know. Multiple Water Rail were squealing to each other in the reed-bed – again suggesting successful breeding. On the way back towards the shelter-belt, a family party of Whitethroat were playing hide-and-seek in the brambles. Oh, and the sum total of ducks for the count – 42 Mallard!
Juvenile Cuckoo – was this a home-bred bird?
This past few days has provided some very interesting sea-watching at Cromer. In particular on Friday, when I was scheduled to help move my youngest son and family to their new house in Peterborough – so I was strictly time-limited. I got to the cliffs for 05.45 and was almost instantly rewarded with a Great Skua, flying east at close range. Two dark phase Arctic Skua, twenty minutes later, added more interest as did the various ducks and waders over the next hour and a half. The relative silence was broken with a text message at 07.20 to say that there had been a ‘Sooty Tern east past Sheringham at 6.57’!! Mindful of the recent article in the birding press about the speed with which the recent Sooty Tern had been tracked flying up the North East coast, I immediately assumed I’d missed it. However, I was quickly joined by Andy and I began searching with some renewed hope. He’d barely got his eye in when I picked up a distant bird that I couldn’t readily identify as something ‘regular’. I watched it for a minute or two before telling Andy to get on to it. It was a large ‘black tern’, flying east with powerful wing-beats at, what I estimated to be 10 – 15m above the water, on the edge of the shipping lane. The distant Sandwich Terns heading east were a useful reference species. I’ve seen both Sooty & Bridled Tern in the UK and plenty abroad – it struck me as either of those species but to be frank there was no way I would have pulled it out if we hadn’t been looking for it. What really threw me was the delay in the bird arriving at east Cromer – but looking that evening at the timings from Sheringham and Weybourne (where Moss had first found the bird) it had taken nearly twenty minutes to travel less than a couple of miles. The bird had then remained off Sheringham for nearly ten minutes before flying east again, last being seen at around 7.05. I wrote down the time a couple of minutes after I’d seen the bird and had a brief discussion, it was 07.40. I estimate I’d watched it for about four minutes in total. That meant it had taken around half an hour to get from Sheringham to us at east Cromer – twice the distance in less than twice the time. I’m not at all surprised that it wasn’t subsequently picked up further east as it’s trajectory when it left us would have taken it way out to sea before the ‘bend’ in the coast.
Aylmerton Nature Diary 