Until quite late in the day I thought this post would likely be all about
sounds rather than sights. And then this happened at Cogden...
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Perpetual motion in yellow
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I am happy to live somewhere that Yellow Wagtails are fairly scarce in
spring, because their value just goes through the roof. A male
Yellow Wag is an eye-poppingly bright little creature, and fully
deserves the audible 'Oh wow!' that accompanies its appearance. Unfortunately
they can be a pig to photograph. Today's bird was dead flighty and never
stopped moving. Neither the above photo nor the one below would normally pass
muster, but they are all I have. And lemon yellow is still a joyous colour,
even when it's badly posed and blurry...
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Male Yellow Wagtail. A few minutes later it was over the coast
road and away.
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Within a hundred metres of the Yellow Wag I was failing once again to
photograph a really smart bird, having inadvertantly flushed my first
Redstart of the year. It was a female, which then proceeded to make
sure it was on the wrong side of every bush in the neighbourhood, and I didn't
get a single shot.
A long time before this little excitement I had been on the coast path, just
inland of the beach. It was very breezy, with a brisk north-easterly blowing
almost straight offshore, but a distant sound had briefly cut through the wind
noise and stopped me in my tracks. A Cuckoo, surely? Only four or five
notes, but I was 90% sure. I waited, but nothing. I walked on. Ten minutes
later it happened again, clearer this time. Definitely a Cuckoo, but
way up near the coastal ridge by the sound of it. With nothing better do I
decided to track it down...
I got very close, but never did see the bird. It was roughly 650m from where I
first heard it, but buried in a dense thicket and calling briefly every few
minutes. I recorded half a dozen short videos, just to capture that wonderful
sound. Here is an mp3 file lifted from one of them...
It is a cool five years since I last heard a Cuckoo, also at Cogden, so that
was the undoubted highlight of this afternoon's outing. However, there were
plenty of other bits and bobs: 7 Wheatears, 3
Lesser Whitethroats, a handful of Willow Warblers and assorted
hirundines.
Having spotted a couple of small Scoter flocks going by, and a
Whimbrel, I sat on the beach for a while to see if there was much else
moving past. After a few minutes I spied a very distant group of five small
white birds flying straight towards the shore it seemed, but a long way west
of me, and well out. Small gulls, I thought. They appeared to have that
white/black/white/black thing going on as they flapped, which in some lights can make very
distant Black-headed Gulls look annoyingly like Little Gulls,
and get you all excited over nothing. They were drifting even further west in
the wind, and I had no scope, so grudgingly let them go and tried to forget
all about them. Unfortunately they came to mind again as I sat down to write
this post.
The Cuckoo wasn't the only audio thrill of the day. Last night's nocmig
recording captured a spring sound I've been hoping for since I first began
this lark two years ago: a little flock of Bar-tailed Godwits. At
least, I think it's a flock. I'm sure the NE wind had some influence, and
hopefully there will be more to come. They are not close, but that jittery,
wickering noise they make is just brilliant all the same...
Finally, another 'Wheatear in habitat' shot to close...
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It is 11:51 on a Saturday morning, and the Wheatear and I are at
the western end of Cogden Beach. The West Bexington houses are some 2.3
miles away. Look how few people there are! Magic.
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