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| photos @jarpartridge |
After hearing that ‘the’
Firecrest has been seen in the Waterworks lately I made the effort to get in
there before work, Jamie had had the same idea and so we arranged to meet up.
As I entered the site a single
Corvid flew South-south-west, something about it said look at me, I don’t know
what it is but you can sometimes just tell the difference between local Crows
and those just passing through, anyhoo I gave it a quick look. It had the
facial expression of a Rook but was dark-faced and didn’t look especially
full-tailed, it carried on its sweet way and so did I.
Joining up with Jamie we checked
the boardwalk area but drew a blank. Moving onto the hide we noted a handful of
Reed Buntings, a couple of Cetti’s Warblers and even saw two Water Rails.
Our talk turned to what might fly
over in such fine weather, we mentioned the possibility of Rook, I mentioned my
bird from earlier in the morning, Jamie said he had seen that too just before I
arrived but came to the same conclusion as I that it couldn’t be a Rook.
Needing to get into work I
suggested another quick look along the boardwalk before I had to go. There was
not a lot of activity but towards the end a singing Crest could be heard in the
distance, unfortunately just at that very moment the world’s noisiest Great
Spotted Woodpecker flew in and scared everything off, this Firecrest does not
want to give itself up without a fight!
I had to go but Jamie decided to
hang on for a bit, my heart sank, Jamie is not safe to leave on the patch on
his own. He seems to have taken on Pete L’s mantle of a year or so back and insists
on finding stuff, this is great when you’re with him but infuriating when you
have to go work! I knew that I would be reading some gripping tweet on the bus
but didn’t really have any option – work is the curse of the birding classes.
I got no more than 200m when I
looked up to see two Corvids flying South-south-west, they had the facial
expression of Rooks and the pale face of Rooks, they even had the full tail of
Rooks. They were Rooks! I turned and shouted to Jamie but he had seen them and
already was reaching for his camera.
Although I have seen Rook now
three years on the trot on the patch this belies the fact that they are
seriously scarce here and have only been recorded in 4 of the last 7 years. Our
mind went back to the first bird we had seen and after a quick bit of googling
we established that Rooks do not acquire their pale face until their second
calendar year, so it probably was a Rook, maybe they are common after all and
we are just missing them…maybe not though.
Naturally Jamie went on to have a
bird singing like a Siberian Chiffchaff after I left him but I suspect that is
a story for another day…
@birdingprof
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