Getting Up To Date

On 18th June, 2005 I visited the Colyford Common reserve near Seaton. In view of the time of year I was expecting absolutely nothing whatsoever. From the road there is a pleasant, tree-lined, grassy track leading down to the salt marsh, and at some point during my inattentive stroll I suddenly realised that a bird was sitting in the centre of it, unhappily watching me approach. I raised my bins and found myself looking at a Turtle Dove. Unfortunately it thought I had got a bit too close, and departed.

Exactly one year later, on 18th June, 2006 I was at Lower Bruckland Ponds and had very brief flight-only views of a...Turtle Dove. That one also was never seen again.

Without doubt June is my least favourite birding month, and yet it is responsible for my only Seaton area Turtle Doves. Oops. I mean was...

Oh...er...hello. Am I a few weeks early...?

As I was working nearby I contrived to have my lunch break at Whitford and catch up with this beauty, present for its third day. It shared the field with three Stock Doves and a Wheatear.

Turtle Dove. Scarce for no good reason, only bad ones.

In other news, my 6th garden Hobby of the year flew through at 14:31 on Monday, directly over my head. It took me by surprise, and though I grabbed the camera and fired off a burst of seven frames, the bird features in just three of them, and only as a blurry speck. Flight photography is humbling.

On Monday evening I rigged up the recording gear for another night's nocmigging, and sat out to accompany it for a while. I wasn't hopeful. Though the wind had dropped, the sky was cloudless, and I figured any passing birds would be very high. However, at 22.22 this flew over and called twice...

It's a Grey Plover, and though the calls aren't loud they are clear enough. Also it's a call with which I'm familiar. Back in the day we would get occasional Grey Plovers at Staines Res, and I used to take delight in imitating the whistle to see if they would respond. So adding Grey Plover to my garden list would be very nice. Would be. That's right, I didn't hear it. I was sitting right there, and heard nothing. How come? It has kindly been suggested that I might have been taking a noisy swig of beer at that precise moment. Possibly. More likely is that the microphone is more sensitive than my knackered ears. Another humbling thing...

Anyway, Grey Plover is actually a really good local record, and it joins Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Turnstone, Common Sandpiper, Oystercatcher and Stone-curlew on the list of waders that my garden has definitely heard and I definitely haven't. I can see I might have to invest in a decent pair of headphones.

Yesterday I went for a longish walk and saw 4 Red Kites, 1 Wheatear and my first Spotted Flycatcher of the year. And along with today's Turtle Dove that brings me up to date, more or less. Just one final thing...

This morning a friend sent me a couple of very short video clips straight off his phone. No bird, just its song. Could I do anything with them in order to produce a sonogram? Well, yes I could. Please step forward, Zoom H4n pro Handy Recorder, and allow me to point you at these laptop speakers while I play this bit of video. Thank you. Right, lets load that into Audacity and then make ourselves a little spectrovid and...hmmm...not bad...

If you were out shopping - no bins, no camera - and heard that, what would you do? Well, there's your answer. Just whip out your smartphone, record a bit of video, and that's it - Iberian Chiffchaff nailed!

I'm not saying that's what happened here. Far from it in fact. But it illustrates how useful is the ability to make a recording in the field. In future I plan to include my H4n pro in my standard birding kit. Just in case...