Andrew
wibble wibble
No, I have not died (you wish!), this is the diary entry for my birding hour or two at the local cemetery with a lifer at the end of the day. . . . .
01-03-03
Location : Tiverton Cemetery, Devon. SS957136
Armed with my binoculars I returned to the local cemetery which is split into two by an unused service lane. The northern section holding the contemporary burial plots with the quieter southern section being the old cemetery with no gravestones later than the nineteenth century.
I started off in the busier southern half finding a couple of very mobile Magpies, a single Herring Gull, 4 Carrion Crows, one of 3 Collared Doves, three of 7 Wood Pigeons and a Robin doing it’s best to sing as loud as it could. I keenly moved onto the quieter and less frequented old cemetery and instantly spotted the day’s only Bullfinch in a leafless tree. This place usually serves up many of these intensely plumaged birds.
The rain started coming down much to my disgust as once again I was not equipped for wet weather. Two Starlings joined the Bullfinch in the tree and the second of 4 Robins sang away close to us in a holly tree in the lane. A classic Christmas card scene if there ever was one.
A pair of Collared Doves were nestling snugly together in another of the old cemetery’s many mature and manicured trees, a Coal Tit alighted on an unusual fir tree and disappeared into it. A Goldcrest zoomed across our path into a gnarled tree and offered a brief glimpse of it’s fine apparel before setting off to the new cemetery.
It was apparent that many of the birds, except for the Robins, were not used to human visitors as they did not allow you to get close. The lack of visitors is what makes the old cemetery a prime bird site. I added a group of 4 Blackbirds, all males with one adult frolicking on the lawn. A rabbit startled me running across the path in front of me and two more Magpies circled the lower old cemetery.
The real target of the day was a Green Woodpecker and I finally found a female as I was beginning to get too wet for comfort. The black moustached bird was perched on a foot high stone holding her head upright. I watched for a while through the raindrops and tried inching closer but it flew off down the gentle sloping graveyard and landed on the trunk of a tree bordering the houses. It bobbed around the trunk and amazed me by showing it could descend the tree backwards ever so skilfully.
Again I walked slowly down to get a better view because I did not dare use my binoculars for fear of being accused by the houses’ residents of invading their privacy. The bird would not have this as I had only got fifty metres away from it and it flew off into a tall cedar tree never to be seen again. There was no sign of the female’s partner at all.
I decided enough was enough and ran back to the car and I made it to the car just in time before a brief deluge fell. Later on during a pause from some shopping on a bench in town I spotted a lifer in the form of 2 Ravens flying over the pannier market in a south west direction. The identification was done via an obvious diamond shaped tail, larger size than other corvidae and a larger wingspan too. An unexpected treasure to end the brief birding session with.
Hope that was nice for you and that you were with me.
01-03-03
Location : Tiverton Cemetery, Devon. SS957136
Armed with my binoculars I returned to the local cemetery which is split into two by an unused service lane. The northern section holding the contemporary burial plots with the quieter southern section being the old cemetery with no gravestones later than the nineteenth century.
I started off in the busier southern half finding a couple of very mobile Magpies, a single Herring Gull, 4 Carrion Crows, one of 3 Collared Doves, three of 7 Wood Pigeons and a Robin doing it’s best to sing as loud as it could. I keenly moved onto the quieter and less frequented old cemetery and instantly spotted the day’s only Bullfinch in a leafless tree. This place usually serves up many of these intensely plumaged birds.
The rain started coming down much to my disgust as once again I was not equipped for wet weather. Two Starlings joined the Bullfinch in the tree and the second of 4 Robins sang away close to us in a holly tree in the lane. A classic Christmas card scene if there ever was one.
A pair of Collared Doves were nestling snugly together in another of the old cemetery’s many mature and manicured trees, a Coal Tit alighted on an unusual fir tree and disappeared into it. A Goldcrest zoomed across our path into a gnarled tree and offered a brief glimpse of it’s fine apparel before setting off to the new cemetery.
It was apparent that many of the birds, except for the Robins, were not used to human visitors as they did not allow you to get close. The lack of visitors is what makes the old cemetery a prime bird site. I added a group of 4 Blackbirds, all males with one adult frolicking on the lawn. A rabbit startled me running across the path in front of me and two more Magpies circled the lower old cemetery.
The real target of the day was a Green Woodpecker and I finally found a female as I was beginning to get too wet for comfort. The black moustached bird was perched on a foot high stone holding her head upright. I watched for a while through the raindrops and tried inching closer but it flew off down the gentle sloping graveyard and landed on the trunk of a tree bordering the houses. It bobbed around the trunk and amazed me by showing it could descend the tree backwards ever so skilfully.
Again I walked slowly down to get a better view because I did not dare use my binoculars for fear of being accused by the houses’ residents of invading their privacy. The bird would not have this as I had only got fifty metres away from it and it flew off into a tall cedar tree never to be seen again. There was no sign of the female’s partner at all.
I decided enough was enough and ran back to the car and I made it to the car just in time before a brief deluge fell. Later on during a pause from some shopping on a bench in town I spotted a lifer in the form of 2 Ravens flying over the pannier market in a south west direction. The identification was done via an obvious diamond shaped tail, larger size than other corvidae and a larger wingspan too. An unexpected treasure to end the brief birding session with.
Hope that was nice for you and that you were with me.
