May 2020 part i — Just A Bird

The morning of 8th May started painfully when I somehow managed to shut the car door on my thumb when jumping out to look at some waders on Vazon beach. However, the day improved considerably about an hour later. I was walking down the sloping field at Mont Herault in the fabulous sunshine and there was a pleasant south-easterly breeze coming off the sea, ideal conditions for something to arrive from France. I turned round to see a larger raptor appear above the fields to my left, silhouetted against the sun. Lifting my bins, the bird swooped round and I could see the wonderful fork and sooty plumage of a Black Kite. Fumbling for my camera which was not playing ball, the bird flew right past me at a very low level and did a circuit of the field in front of me - such terrific views of this rare bird. After checking me out, it continued on and disappeared off northwards over the brow of the slope. I managed to get some great pictures, despite the camera still being on settings for taking close-up pics of insects - why do I never learn?

As Black Kite has been showing a general increase in records and expanding in range, it isn’t an ‘unexpected’ species any more, but it is still properly rare here. This is only the 12th record for the island and there were no accepted sightings in the previous two years, so still a thrill to find one yourself. I had to walk up the hill a bit to get phone coverage and put the news out, by which time Mark G had already seen the bird further over the headland.

I carried on walking the fields at Mont Herault but migrant-wise I could only find a few Wheatear, to go with the single Whinchat I’d seen earlier. The next grapevine message was that the Black Kite was now circling over Trinity Cottages, and I could see it from the top of the hill by the watchhouse. As I walked back westwards it kept appearing and I eventually saw it drift inland and seemingly head off eastwards.

Because of this, the next message that came through was a surprise - there were now three Black Kites circling over the headland! I was back near the car now so I drove off to get a closer view. Parking by Vic’s field I joined Wayne and Mark and we watched all three birds soaring in the blue skies high above the headland. Superb stuff. There has never been a ‘flock’ of kites in Guernsey before - there was once a pair seen but all others have been singles. It was such a thrilling experience, highlight of the spring.

Wayne & Mark watching Black Kites whilst socially distancing.

I thought that maybe these were new birds, different from the first sighting, but looking at photos, I think the first bird was probably one of these three - they eventually drifted off inland again. I drove to Raptor Ridge in case they had settled there but there was no sign, but a Hobby went through whilst I was there. And then I saw another Hobby fly over Bailliff’s Cross Road as I drove home - a great day for raptors.

Previous to this I’d had a few good sightings in May, starting with a Hobby which flew over the garden whilst I was gardening on 2nd. Luckily, as with most birders I suspect, I was gardening with a pair of bins at arms reach. I went up Pleinmont on 3rd May as that would have been the day of the annual bird race which was of course cancelled this year due to the virus. I was dreading that the headland would be dripping with migrants and we’d missed out on a top day, but it was not, with just a male Redstart of note. In fact it was so foggy up there, we wouldn’t have been able to scan the fields. A Sedge Warbler was seen in the pines at Fort Hommet on the way home.

The highlight of my ‘lockdown walk’ on the 4th was a singing Garden Warbler out in the open in the scrub near the Track Marais, but a low-light was seeing that the Greylag Geese there had bred and no doubt the place would be soon crawling with them. On the same walk two days later I flushed a Tree Pipit from the path by Les Nicolles which was a surprise migrant sighting.

On 10th May I walked round the Grand Pre and heard two male Cetti’s singing - one in the usual spot by the pool and one right next to the car park. With these two, the ones in the Track Marais area, plus birds singing at Claire Mare, Rue des Bergers and Mark’s odd out-of-habitat one at Saints, this makes at least 9 possibly 10 singing Cetti’s this year which is a record count for the island. I had a brief Hobby buzz the hirundines over the pool and a cluster of Altar-lilies growing in the marsh (escaped from a nearby garden) brought me up to 2300 species identified in the ‘wild’ in Guernsey.

Just A Bird

Just A Bird

Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

Just A Bird

Just A Bird