Almost a year ago I began a post describing a visit to the UK by one of the best bird bloggers on the net (the wonderful Carrie Laben of Great Auk - or Greatest Auk?) with the words. “If I visit a blogger somewhere and they don’t write about it within a few days I start fretting that I must have said something stupid or said something to offend them or my deodorant wasn’t working properly or I’m a rubbish birder and they don’t know how to break the news to the rest of the bloggers out there who might have heard of me…”.

Oddly enough - having had neither sight nor sound of any blogger on my home territory for nearly twelve months - I find myself in pretty much the same position having just hosted David Ringer, Birdstack guru and author of the Search and Serendipity blog, who was on a quick trip through London a few days ago. However, this time I’m not quite as paranoid as before, as David flew out to Kenya and onto Ethiopia (where internet connections are as rare as Texan-based birders) the next morning and I think I left him so tired after hours of marching up and down Surrey’s excellent Thursley Common that it may take him days to even attempt to sum up what a great afternoon we had…

And a ‘great afternoon’ is sadly all we had, as David, who is every bit as intelligent and interesting as Search and Serendipity would suggest, had only flown into Heathrow that morning and had a meeting to attend before joining me at 13:00. I did, however, drag the afternoon out until it was dark (which in the UK in June is long after nine o’clock - oh, yes, we’re not as far north as Clare and his Arctic House but our summer nights are still long drawn-out things) so we made the best of what time we had (at least I hope that’s what he went away thinking rather than, “Charlie, let me SLEEP!”).

Why would we stay out so long? Ah, to learn that I’m going to make you wait (not as long as I made David wait as it turned out, but wait nonetheless).

So, to start at the beginning. As I said, I met David at Heathrow just after 13:00 and we left straight away for our ‘destination du jour’ about 30 miles south-east of the airport (actually by the time I remembered which floor the car was parked on the car it wasn’t quite straight away but near enough) with me pointing out every bird we saw as went (which I was more than happy to try to do, even though after a while even David had seen enough Wood Pigeons and Magpies for me to ease off a touch).

Wood Pigeon Columba palumbus:
from my garden, admittedly, but a Wood Pigeon nonetheless…

Magpie Pica pica: Not taken at Thursley either,
but it looks just like the ones we saw en-route (which were flying away too)

I knew David would be a little bit wiped out after a night’s flight, little sleep, and a meeting at one of the world’s busiest airports (I’ll leave you to work out how I knew), but I also knew that he hadn’t been to the UK before and wanted to get some good birding under his belt before he went on to East Africa - hence the reason I’d chosen (on his behalf) Thursley Common, a lovely heathland site in southern Surrey which is of national importance for its birds, reptiles and invertebrates (especially, in terms of the latter set, its dragon- and damselflies) and has good numbers of some very scarce plants, including the carnivorous Sundew Drosera rotundifolia which attracts insects with glistening drops of mucilage, loaded with a sugary substance, that cover its leaves.

Sundew Drosera rotundifolia

A reasonable choice I felt, and one from where we could easily visit a number of different sites if we either cleaned up in rapid time, had way more energy than the high (for the UK) temperature would normally allow, or just decided that instead of a leisurely stroll we would go for a high octane get-as-many-species-on-the-list-as-possible approach…

“♫ Follow the yellow…er, squiggly line from Heathrow to Thursley…♫”

The Moat Car Park is the easiest place to park/meet up and is between
the villages of Thursley and Elstead.

Fortunately for both of us Thursley has enough ’specials’ to keep most intinerant naturalists on a short visit to the UK in between flights pretty much busy for an afternoon, and though we would have probably increased the day list by a few birds if we’d gone to, say, the nearby Frensham Ponds, David had been to Europe before and (so he told me) was quite happy to expend what gas he had left in the tank tramping up and down the rough tracks and footpaths of this very special nature reserve
(especially as we made a very brief diversion en-route to the Royal Horticultural Society’s HQ at nearby Wisley where we picked up a fair selection of common ‘garden’ birds, including Goldcrest, Blackbird, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Common Kestrel, Buzzard, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, and Blue and Great Tits).

Anyway, back to those ’specials’…

Thursley Common is a small fraction of what once was extensive heathlands that covered much of Surrey (only one sixth of the heathland present in England in 1800 now remains). Seen as ‘wasteland’ by (tragically ignorant) developers and town planners, huge areas of gorse, bracken, and heathers were ploughed up and built over or planted with trees. Consequently breeding populations of once more widespread species like Dartford Warbler, Hobby, Nightjar, and Wood Lark have become much more restricted, and reserves like Thursley (which is managed for heathland birds) have become prime sites to see them…and those in a nutshell are the birds we particularly came to see!

Now I realise that to a birder on a quick trip to a new country one new bird is pretty much as good as another, but in my personal experience I would rather see fewer birds but of species I may never see again than see plenty of common, widespread birds that I could see on any repeat visit. I’m sure many birders would agree (if not I’m sure someone will put me right in the ‘comments’ below), and - as far as I can tell - David (who is far too polite to have said anything else I reckon) would be one of those in the ‘agree’ camp.

A man in the ‘agree’ camp…?

I did warn him as we pulled up at the Moat Car Park that as it was early-mid June I may not be able to find some of our targets as many - I thought - would have stopped singing by now and might be harder to find. As it turned out I was correct as far as the Dartford Warblers Sylvia undata were concerned. Despite straining my ears to the limit I couldn’t pick up the scratchy, distinctive song of the Dartford, though a few pairs of the closely related Common Whitethroat S. communis were still in full song. However not only were both Sky Larks and the absolutely gorgeous Wood Larks still singing away at full tilt, we found a singing Common Redstart too. Unfortunately the Redstart was singing from the top of a tree out of camera range, but I did manage to get photos of the two larks…

Sky Lark Alauda arvensis

Wood Lark Lullula arborea - perhaps one of the most lyrical scientific names you will ever have to pronounce…

My personal favourite ‘heathland special’ though is the (Northern) Hobby, a beautiful small falcon which is typically described as ’swift-like’ with ’sickle-shaped’ or ‘rakish’ wings and ‘elegant’ flight. Summer visitors that winter in Africa, they are superb flyers, hurtling across the sky after dragonflies or other small birds like hirundines and Swifts which they catch in mid-air in both stooping & low-level surprise attacks: they are capable of outflying Common Swifts reaching speeds estimated to up to 100 mph!

I’d told David that though we should see a Hobby or two, I couldn’t actually guarantee it. Most ‘guides’ always say that target birds aren’t guaranteed, but if we hadn’t seen at least one I’d have been mightily disappointed. I needn’t have worried: Hobbies have been increasing in recent years and Thursley is a great place to see them, and we’d only been walking around for about ten minutes when David looked up from a pair of Stonechats we’d found to identify his life Hobbies as they flashed over. Superb…

Northern Hobby Falco subbuteo.

We saw individuals on and off throughout the afternoon and early evening, and at one point were able to see a pair sat on one of Thursley’s dead pines (a fire swept through in 2006 burning much of the heathland - but heathland plants and animals are adapted to surviving frequent fires and soon rebound). A truly beautiful sight (and David probably has no idea how unusual it is for visiting Americans to see perched Hobbies…or how unusual it was to pick up a distant Red Kite being harassed by crows as it flew over, though I did make quite a big fuss of that sighting so perhaps he did…).

So what else did we see? Let me think: that icon of the European summer, a European Cuckoo; several Reed Buntings; plenty of Barn Swallows; a pair of Coal Tits; one very distant Tree Pipit (that simply disappeared from sight before we got really good views unfortunately); plenty of Chaffinches; and a beautiful male Green Woodpecker sat on a tree before diving into a nesting cavity. Expected species perhaps, but not a bad few hours birding really!

One species that did take a surprisingly long time to find was the resident Curlews. Thursley is a real rarity in itself in that it has a ‘valley mire’, a permanent area of boggy pools and ditches that - today at least - was studded with Southern Marsh Orchids and Cotton Grass (a form of sedge), held a Little Grebe and David’s first Tufted Duck, our only Golden-ringed Dragonfly of the afternoon and numerous Four-spotted Chasers. But the blinking Curlews - which should be pretty conspicuous when you’re talking about big birds and largely ankle-deep water and tussock grass - were nowhere to be seen…

Cotton Grass Eriophorum sp

David looking at - er, something quite small I think…

…until the very late afternoon, when finally we managed to locate where one of the bubbling, cooerr-leeeeuuuu calls we’d been hearing occasionally was coming from as - much to my relief - a Curlew at last appeared over high over heads filling the now almost quiet Common with one of the most beautiful sounds in all of British birding…

Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata.

Given that the light was starting to dim, that David had been awake for most of the last 36 hours and I still had a 100 mile drive ahead of me after I’d dropped David back at his hotel now might have been a good time to give in and head home. But there was still one bird I wanted to find - Britain’s only caprimulgid, the Nightjar.

Nightjars arrive in the UK between late April to mid-May from wintering grounds in Africa and are best looked and listened for at dusk on warm, still, summer evenings when they give the most wonderful (frog-like) churring call - which just as it was starting to get pretty dark we finally picked up in the distance and which I was informed by an entranced David, who regularly hears Pauraques and Whipoorwills, was absolutely nothing like he was expecting.

Hearing one was pretty good but with the last light in the sky and the temperature falling like a stone we managed - against the odds I have to say - to see a male as it drifted like a huge moth through the trees and out across the heathland: a perfect end to a very long afternoon, best bird of the day (except perhaps for Long-tailed Tit which apparently was a bird David had always wanted to see) and high fives all round frankly…

Which just about wraps up a long post. However, I will add one more thing - if anyone coming through the UK wants me to show them round do let me know. Mail me through the blog and let’s have a chat!
Cheers…

Female Emperor Moth Saturnia pavonia: the Nightjar was bird of the day but I have to say this gorgeous moth - the first I’ve ever seen - ran it close for best sighting of the day…

Day List: (+ equals ‘very common’)
Little Grebe Tachybaptus ruficollis 1; Mute Swan Cygnus olor 1; Mallard Anas platyrhynchos +; Tufted Duck Aythya fuligula 1; Red Kite Milvus milvus 1; Common Buzzard Buteo buteo 2; Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus 2; Northern Hobby Falco subbuteo 3-4; [Common Pheasant Phasianus colchicus Heard;] Common Moorhen Gallinula chloropus 3; Eurasian Coot Fulica atra 3; Feral Pigeon Columba livia +; Wood Pigeon Columba palumbus +; Common Cuckoo Cuculus canorus 1; [Tawny Owl Strix aluco Heard;] European Nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus 1 (+1 heard); Common Swift Apus apus 5-6; Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major 1; Green Woodpecker Picus viridis 1; Wood Lark Lullula arborea 4; Sky Lark Alauda arvensis 3; Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica +; House Martin Delichon urbica c)10; White (Pied) Wagtail Motacilla alba yarelii 1; Tree Pipit Anthus trivialis 1; Goldcrest Regulus regulus 1; (Winter) Wren Troglodytes troglodytes +; Common Blackbird Turdus merula +; [Song Thrush Turdus philomelos 2 Heard;] Common Whitethroat Sylvia communis 3-4; European Robin Erithacus rubecula +; Common Redstart Phoenicurus phoenicurus 1; Common Stonechat Saxicola rubicola 4-5; Long-tailed Tit Aegithalos caudatus 3-4; Coal Tit Periparus ater 3; Great Tit Parus major 4-5; Blue Tit Cyanistes caeruleus +; Eurasian Jay Garrulus glandarius 2; Eurasian/Black-billed Magpie Pica pica +; Eurasian Jackdaw Corvus monedula +; Rook Corvus frugilegus 3-4; Carrion Crow Corvus corone +; Common Starling Sturnus vulgaris +; House Sparrow Passer domesticus +; Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs +; European Greenfinch Carduelis chloris +; Eurasian Siskin Carduelis spinus 4; European Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis ; Reed Bunting Emberiza schoeniclus 3

All photos copyright Charlie Moores 2009