Ham Wall and Shpwick Heath

Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath

13th June 2009.

Well, we joined the twitchers. As I drew up to Ashcott Corner I could not believe that the car park was full, and cars were parked all round the local roads. What was going on? I soon discovered; a Little Bittern had been sighted on the reed bed at Ham Wall, so off we went to join the merry throng and see what we could see. The Little Bittern is a small member of the Heron family, which is a rare visitor to England. It winters in Africa, and usually summers in France Spain, Portugal and Holland. This one went the wrong way. It lives in reed beds, and takes short flights, low over the reeds. The one sighting we had was just that, but what made it easy to identify were the large white/cream ovals on the top of each wing. The rest of the bird looked a dark brown. All very exciting.

Now back to normal. The first 20 minutes or so were amazing in the number of birds that we saw. I could hardly keep up writing down as yet another was seen. There were Swifts, Swallows and House Martins overhead, there were Blackcaps, Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Blackbirds and Wrens singing in the bushes, (not all of them seen), then to my delight I saw a Bittern, which was my Bird-to-see of the day, and a lovely view as it flew along side us. It is a large rather heavy member of the Heron family. They have only in the past few years taken to living at Ham Wall and breeding there. It is one of England’s conservation successes. We actually had four sightings of Bitterns, but the chances were that there were two birds each seen twice. So I was happy. My next aim, apart from the Little Bittern, was to see a Hobby, which are often seen there, as they catch dragonflies and they are plentiful in the area. This meant that I was rather looking skywards. It seemed that everyone else saw one, but I missed it!! We progressed round the reed beds, hunting the elusive bird. We saw a family of Swans swimming in a crocodile, Dad in front, the 5 young tidily in line and mum bringing up the rear, as if they were on the way to school. A lovely sight and a lot of cygnets for them to bring up. Cormorants, Black-headed Gulls, and Lesser Black-backed Gulls wheeled overhead, then we saw two Buzzards soaring, a sight I always enjoy. Still no Little Bittern, though lots of people hunting it. We watched a Little Grebe on the edge of the reeds diving for water beetles. Having gone round three sides of a square, we settled in a place, with many others, where the reeds were quite low, so that we could see the surface of the reed bed and it was warm in the sun. I was still hunting Hobbies, while even more people found them. We saw a Willow Warbler, and heard more Blackcaps; a Reed Bunting came out of the reeds, and stood on the path then flew off, but there was plenty of time to see the distinctive white sides to its tail, the rest of the body being streaks of black grey and brown,, not unlike a sparrow. At last we saw the elusive Little Bittern (no Hobby yet for me), and so we could feel that we had achieved our goal, and could return to the very hot cars for lunch. We sat very close to a very noisy Cetti’s Warbler, which we never saw, but it kept us alert during lunch, and also the song of the Blackcap.

After lunch we went onto Shapwick Heath. We did actually manage to see a Cetti’s Warbler, and there were an awful lot around making quite a racket. Then we had several good views of Whitethroats, which was a bonus. We saw a family of Tufted Ducks. I did not realise that when they flew, in summer plumage, their wings were a shimmering silver, most attractive. We progressed along the path to the hide. We settled in to see the cormorants on the dead trees, and several were nesting and some with young. There were lots of Mute Swans, close to the hide and further away were Great Crested Grebes, then Joy oh Joy a Hobby flew around and I was able to watch it for several minutes. Once I had recovered from that a Bittern appeared entering stage right and exiting stage left.

What a wonderful day out, and in total we saw 52 species. It was interesting that there were no Magpies nor Sparrows, but even odder was the total absence of Starlings. After seeing several thousand in the winter, where have they all gone?

Number of species seen: 52

Ann Crawford

Birds seen, in BOU order or alphabetic order

BOU order

Mute Swan

Canada Goose

Greylag Goose

Gadwall

Mallard

Tufted Duck

Little Grebe

Great Crested Grebe

Cormorant

Bittern

Little Bittern

Little Egret

Grey Heron

Purple Heron (only seen by Tom!)

Buzzard

Hobby

Moorhen

Coot

Lapwing

Black-tailed Godwit

Curlew

Redshank

Black-headed Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Common Tern

Wood Pigeon

Collared Dove (heard only)

Swift

Swallow

House Martin

Wren (heard only)

Dunnock (heard only)

Robin

Blackbird

Song Thrush (heard only)

Cetti’s Warbler

Sedge Warbler (heard only)

Reed Warbler

Garden Warbler

Blackcap

Whitethroat

Chiffchaff

Willow Warbler

Goldcrest

Long-tailed Tit

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Carrion Crow

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Goldfinch

Reed Bunting

Alphabetic order