May issue - Magazine - Page 23
Glenside
News
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LOCAL INTEREST
BYTHAMS BIRDS
By Jackie Murray
Global Big Day on May the 10 broke all records with
1.7 million birders from all parts of the globe recording
bird species and numbers. Between us they watched
and counted over three quarters of the world's bird
species. My thoroughly enjoyable but exhausting dawn
until dusk walk produced a total of 63 species. An
extremely pleasing total of birds from just a 4km
square patch, inland and with no big wetland.
We have a lot to be happy about with our local
environment. So often environmental reports are
depressing and sad, with species in decline and facing
extinction. On my Big Day counting I was able to
connect with all sorts of birds that are rare, and not just
one-in-a-bush but several across the area.
Cuckoos, for example (below). When I started
birding this patch 25 years ago it was a struggle to find
one, some years I failed even that. On the 10th May I
came across at least five. And there will be more.
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The migrant warblers such as Greater and Lesser
Whitethroat, Garden and Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and
Blackcap had all arrived and were singing their hearts
out in places such as Pickworth and Lawn Woods and
Stanton's Pit. These birds are hard to see and harder
to identify but they make their presence known by
sound. They sing all summer so visit earlyish on a
sunny day and use the Merlin app to ID them.
Just because we have these birds easily heard
locally, it does not mean they are everywhere. I was
recently on a nature reserve not far from here where
people were excited to hear a Lesser Whitethroat,
whilst locally we have several of these birds.
We cannot, however, be complacent. So, it was
really heartening to see the positive reaction to our
Swift box action idea. Swifts need somewhere to nest
and locals in Glenside have provided it. The Swifts are
back and already reacting to the electronic callers and
the 38 boxes that have been put up.
“Nature needs our help,” as Sir David
Attenborough so often quotes. We are giving it in so
many little ways and they all add up. If you want to
engage more but are not sure how, think about
attending the world's biggest festival of nature that is
Global Birdfair from July 11th to 13th at Lyndon Top on
the South shore of Rutland Water.
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