Tree Pipits and more in the Wyre forest

 

Tree Pipit

Monday at dawn found me back at my happy place, the beautiful Wyre Forest. And what a wonderful  dawn it was, sunny, bitter cold with a clear sky overhead, a light mist in the valleys and a touch of frost on the ground. It felt for all the world as though I had been spirted to the enchanted elven wood  of Lothlórien rather than the English midlands. I love getting to the forest at dawn and being the first car in the car park. The solitude of the first two hours of so in the wood before dog walkers and bikers arrive on mass always has such a positive and uplifting effect on me mentally.

 

My main targets today were the returning Tree Pipits which I had only glimpsed and heard snatches of the previous week. Walking down the forest hill from Hawkbatch I was struck by how noticeably quieter it was compared to the previous week, I guess the cold frosty start to the day had somewhat dampened the spirts of the  dawn chorus.  Down at Dowles Brook the Dipper was sat on what seems to be its favourite rock just past the bridge. From here I walked up to the three nest boxes on the woody hill where I had seen my first Pied Flycatchers of the year last week.

 

I paused to watch the antics of two males and one female amply demonstrating the old adage that three is a crowd. The female was checking out one of the nest boxes and eventually popped inside to look at the accommodation. One of the males then went in closely followed by the other male who attempted also to get into the box. The first male was having none of this and chased what I assume was the interloper all around the canopy for a couple of minutes before the trespasser gave up and fled the scene.

Female Pied Flycatcher

Male Pied Flycatcher

Walking further up to the Tree Pipit area I head the characteristic song or call, I’m not sure which it is to be honest, of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker flying overhead.

 

The area favoured by the Tree Pipits is somewhat more open than most of the forest with spaced out trees that look like silver birch. The whole area has been fenced off by Forestry England with signs up saying that it is out of bounds for the foreseeable future. Tree Pipits are ground nesters and I’m pretty sure that the authorities have taken this action to keep walkers and, particularly, loose dogs out. There are new signs up all over the forest featuring a photo of a Redstart saying that it’s the bird nesting season and to keep your dogs on a lead and on the path. Sadly this seems to be universally ignored. It seems that in the absence of some form of policing, many dog owners choose to do the opposite. I’m often tempted to confront someone whose dog is running rampantly through the undergrowth but, to be brutely honest,  there are so many doing it that it seems pointless and also a  good way to ruin my day. In that sense you may call me a coward but I don’t want every visit to my happy place ruined by an angry and potentially aggressive confrontation .

 

Looking over the fence into the fenced off area I could hear at least two male Tree Pipits singing and after a short while I was very fortunate to have one perch up in a tree right in front of me to sing his attractive song hence affording some great photo opportunities.

These are comparatively small passerine birds  that breed throughout most of Europe and the Palearctic  as far east as east Siberia . It is a long-distance migrant spending the winter in Africa and southern Asia. It is quite similar in appearance to our common Meadow Pipit but has a more buff breast and only pencil like  streaking on the flanks. As per its name, and unlike the similar Meadow Pipit, it regularly perches in and sings from trees. It also has an unmistakable  song flight where it  rises a short distance up from a tree, and then parachutes down on stiff wings  with the song becoming more drawn out towards the end. The song is sweet and melodic hence obeying the hutchins inverse law that the duller the bird the sweeter the song.

After an hour or so I pulled myself away and walked back to the brook where the resident pair of Mandarin were showing well. They are by no means guaranteed to show on every visit but for sheer bling value the male will lighted up the darkest of days. This is a species of duck native to the East Palearctic which has been introduced to the UK, presumably from escaped ornamental collections. It is on the BOU list as a C category bird meaning that it is a species that, although introduced, now derive from the resulting self-sustaining populations and is hence tickable.

   

With it starting to cloud over and rain forecast for the afternoon I decided to move onto the comparatively near by Upton Warren nature reserve where there were hides to shelter in if the forecast rain materialised. A Spotted Crake had been photographed from one of the hides the previous morning but had then departed into the surrounding dense reed beds and, to date, has not been seen again. I once spent 10 hours staring at reeds, as you do, for a ten second glimpse of one to get it on my UK bird list. At the flashes Avocet, Common Sandpiper and Little Ringed Plover were all new for the year for me. Over at the moors I heard and eventually saw my first Sedge Warbler of the year, always a very welcome event in my birding calendar.

 

Back at home the Common Whitethroats are back in the local hedges and scrub shouting out their scratchy song. I’ll be out with my camera soon to try and add to the hundreds of pictures I already have of them!

 

 

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