Having an absolutely Quail of a time in Gloucestershire

Greenshank

Quail can be described succinctly as easy to hear and nigh on impossible to see. They are not particularly common birds, being rated as scarce or local in the Colins bird bible, but they tend to be faithful to particular locations where they return to breed. Their song is loud and completely diagnostic, three chirps  normally repeated three times in quick succession which is said to sound like “wet my lips”. It is loud and carries a long way and is most commonly heard around sunrise and sunset. It is, however, a bird that is notoriously difficult to see, keeping hidden in crops and long grass, and is very reluctant to fly, preferring to creep away instead. They are almost un-flushable and will only take to the wing if you are literally about to step on them. They are also small birds which are exceptionaly well camouflaged. They are summer visitors to the UK which winter in Africa and southern India.

 

I decided to try a new location to look for them this year in farmland in south Gloucestershire where a number of singing males had been reported. The farms in this particular area were said to be very wildlife friendly and avoiding early hay cuts when ground nesting birds were still breeding. As an added attraction there were said to be good numbers of other farmland birds present, in particularly Corn Buntings.

 

I parked my car and walked up the footpath adjacent to several fields with long grass and immediately heard the unmistakable “wet my lips” song of the male. I would estimate that there were four males singing from different parts of the field. Standing in a gap in the hedge along the footpath gave a good view over the largest of the grass fields and after a few moments a Quail sang loudly from very close to me. Now this is an experience I’ve had before, a Quail singing so close to me that it feels as though It must be sitting on my boots but absolutely no visual sign of the bird. Here I stayed looking through the grass while keeping very still at my vantage point in the hedge. I absolutely did not want to disturb the bird by walking out into the field and anyway it would have been quite pointless as it would just run off through the grass. I looked and looked both by naked eye and with my binoculars getting increasingly frustrated as the bird sang and sang “ wet my lips”. Then, perhaps after 30 minutes had passed, at last I saw it no more than a few meters away from me perfectly camouflaged in the grass. Indeed it was so well camouflaged that when I made the mistake of looking away it took me another 10 minutes to find it again. This diminutive bird was perfectly still apart from its bill parting to sing its repetitive song over and over again. I didn’t bother to try any photography; it was so well hidden in the grass and probably too close for my lens. Its tiny brown eye and white supercilium were fairly prominent but the rest of its body merged perfectly into the continuum of the grass field. 

 

They are ground nesters and the young are precocial meaning that shortly after hatching they leave the nest and can feed themselves. They start laying in the middle of May so, in all probability, the singing male had youngsters nearby.

 

After 15 minutes or so I slowly moved away to leave the Quail to his song, very happy at last to convert Quail from heard only to actually seen on my UK list. I spent a while watching and photographing the numerous Corn Buntings in the hedges and fields. This is a bird of open country with trees, such as farmland and weedy wasteland. It has declined greatly in north-west Europe due to intensive agricultural practices depriving it of its food supply of weed seeds and insects, the latter especially vital when feeding the young. Very sadly It has recently become extinct in Wales and Ireland  where it was previously common. It must be possible to farm in a wild-life eco-friendly manner and still make a living otherwise farms such as this would quickly cease to exist. This surely is where government intervention is required to financially encourage farmers to go down this route, something I fear will never happen under our current government.

 

Corn Bunting

At lunch time I made my way back to the car with the almost sad call of the Quail slowly fading into the background noise of the countryside. How can anyone extract pleasure out of shooting such a beautiful little creature? I sometimes wonder if we really are all part of the same human species. Perhaps its call is really “don’t shoot me” rather than “wet my lips”.

 

I decided to spend the afternoon at Slimbridge which was conveniently on the way home. For lunch I stopped at a little farmyard café just outside of Slimbridge which offered wood fired pizza and enjoyed a large vegetarian pizza. Arriving at Slimbridge early afternoon I made my way to my favourite Rushy hide to see what was around. A large flock of Godwits, many still in their attractive rusty red summer plumage, were sleeping and feeding close to the hide. The Black-winged Stilt was still present but a little more distant than on my previous visit last week. Towards the back of the Rushy two Spotted Redshank, still in their jet black summer breeding onesies, were feeding in the shallow water. A strongly marked Greenshank was feeding in amongst the Godwit flock. I was using the eye tracking feature on the R5 to take photos of it when it was disturbed by something and flew across the scrape. The outstanding eye tracking capability of the R5 tracked the bird as it flew allowing some nice sharp flight shots that I was very pleased with.

Greenshank

 

Godwit

I left Slimbridge late afternoon feeling rather smug and self-satisfied that some good field craft had finally yielded views of my newfound “wet my lips” friend.

 

 

 Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!