A good day was had yesterday 20th May as we led a group around Martin Down a superb chalk downland great for butterflies and orchids and of course the special downland birds.
From the word go we had Skylark and Yellowhammer then a few of butterflies Holly Blue, Brimstone and Grizzled Skipper followed shortly after by Dingy Skipper. Blackcap and Whitethroat were also picked up pretty quickly and of course Woodpigeon, Rooks and accompanying Jackdaw were all around coming and going from their nest sites
We arrived at the long thick mixed scrub patch that usually gives us Lesser Whitethroat and Turtle Dove but all was quite except for a Common Whitethroat and a Blackcap and another Yellowhammer though that was further away. Then a speeding Turtle Dove flew past in front rom right to left and disappeared into the trees and was gone from view. We change our position to view the tree better and it flew out returning to where it had just come from and began its gentle 'purr purr' song, just perfect. Over sometime we were tantalised by brief flight views of several Turtle Dove comings and goings but none would sit out in the open for us to get a good view. But eventually one did perch up in a view position for everyone to get excellent views of this beautiful small dove.
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| poor shot of a Turtle Dove as it flew by |
Continuing on we recorded at least two singing Lesser Whitethroat but neither came into view the wind was just to high for these song birds to raise their heads. We also recorded our first Common Blue butterfly of the year sheltering in the lee of this belt of thorn scrub. The rest of the walk was pretty uneventful though we did add Raven, Meadow Pipit and several Buzzards and Kestrel to our day list. We ended our walk much the same as we started with Yellowhammer, Linnet and Skylark, but all agreed that it was just a perfect walk as the Turtle Dove performed so well in the end.
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| Male Yellowhammer - Martin Down © Nick Hull |
In Search of Red-footed Falcon
Whilst we were leading our walk at Martin Down news broke of a female Red-footed Falcon had been found perched in a tree of a garden near to Wareham school and was hawking over the Wareham water meadows. After lunch I had to attend my gym club so we had to wait until after 16.30hrs before we were able to go for it. It was a little nail-biting wait but we arrived and parked on the bridge and joined other birders looking for this scarce visitor. Which incidentally hadn't been seen for quite a long time, though a couple of birders had seen three falcons hawking some distance away up river. After quite a wait we had a tantalising view as a falcon powered past along the woodland edge and disappeared out of sight over Stoborough. Then another birder found it flying very high above the tree line heading back towards the west then it headed briefly towards us and then away again out of sight towards East Holme direction.
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| Very distant female Red-footed Falcon - Wareham By-pass |
This is a shot I took as the bird glided towards us before moving off to the west you can see the obvious pale head that even at this distance set her aside from a Hobby. We then waited for quite a time with no further sightings. Well, not satisfied with the views we had, Jackie and I and a couple of other local birders decided to go and see if we could relocate her further up river. I think that our local knowledge then paid off. From the top of Worgret hill gives a good view of the Lower Frome water meadows looking over towards East Holme and we quickly picked up three falcons feeding on the wing over the trees the opposite side of the valley and one of these was definitely the Red-footed Falcon. The question was how to get a closer view, well we took a chance and drove around to East Holme and just stopped at places where we could see through the hedges and trees towards where we thought the bird was feeding. Eventually we scored the jackpot, though not ideal the bird only came into view on occasions but gave us respectable views and thanks to my new long lens I managed a few passible shots though heavily cropped of this beautiful 1st/summer female Red-footed Falcon as is crossed the tree tops into view.
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| Red-footed Falcon - Lower Frome Water Meadows © Nick Hull |
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| Red-footed Falcon - Lower Frome Water Meadows © Nick Hull |
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| Red-footed Falcon - Lower Frome Water Meadows © Nick Hull |
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