KenM
Well-known member
April 17th 2020 (start of Covid), found missus and I, doing our 10k steps over Epping forest land, when to my surprise looking South into a weak sun, I firing from the hip blurted Hobby! (would’ve been my earliest ever).
However, a rapid correction was made upon seeing two small passerines in “hot pursuit” Christ I exclaimed It’s a Cuckoo!!
To put this into some sort of context, I hadn’t seen Cuckoo locally for decades, just heard the occasional bird (distantly) less than annually.
As for seeing one being pursued by small birds, I’d have to go back to the ‘60’s!
Cuckoos have now summered for the last three years! and a thumb through the latest London Bird Report 2019, reveals that although nationally like most Tran-Saharan’s they’ve decreased, with Cuckoos according to the “breeding bird survey” by 39% between 2008-2018, as a contradiction to that, their territories in Herts and Essex have almost doubled!!…
Any chance of Red-backed Shrike, Spotted Flycatcher, Tree Pipit, Willow Warbler, Common Redstart “jumping on the bandwagon” and reclaiming territories “long since gone”, a cause for optimism from a “hard-wired cynic…or just a flash in the pan?
Cheers
However, a rapid correction was made upon seeing two small passerines in “hot pursuit” Christ I exclaimed It’s a Cuckoo!!
To put this into some sort of context, I hadn’t seen Cuckoo locally for decades, just heard the occasional bird (distantly) less than annually.
As for seeing one being pursued by small birds, I’d have to go back to the ‘60’s!
Cuckoos have now summered for the last three years! and a thumb through the latest London Bird Report 2019, reveals that although nationally like most Tran-Saharan’s they’ve decreased, with Cuckoos according to the “breeding bird survey” by 39% between 2008-2018, as a contradiction to that, their territories in Herts and Essex have almost doubled!!…
Any chance of Red-backed Shrike, Spotted Flycatcher, Tree Pipit, Willow Warbler, Common Redstart “jumping on the bandwagon” and reclaiming territories “long since gone”, a cause for optimism from a “hard-wired cynic…or just a flash in the pan?
Cheers
Last edited: