Our January 2021 survey was covered in the previous post as it doubled for the RSPB Big Birdwatch count. The highlights were 150 gulls and 60 redwings in the north field. In our next survey on 22nd Feb, the redwings were still there but the number had dropped to 30. The gull count was down to only 10 black-headed gulls and 2 common gulls. Also of note were 24 starlings, 20 house sparrows, 11 robins and 5 dunnocks which is a record count for that species. Also recorded: 3 blackbirds, 3 blue tits, 6 carrion crows, 1 collared dove, 7 goldfinches, 4 great tits, 5 magpies, 5 ring-necked parakeets, 1 song thrush, 1 stock dove, 5 woodpigeons and 7 wrens. I think this is the first time we've seen collared dove and stock dove on the same survey. There's a photo of collared doves in our wonderful new Birds of Hilly Fields booklet (see below). The stock dove has a green patch on its neck and a buff breast.
Stock Dove (stock photo)
On the 22nd March survey, it was nice to see a chaffinch near the stone circle, a female great spotted woodpecker drumming on the Lane, a pair of long-tailed tits in the Shade Garden, a pair of very active nuthatches which looked as if scouting for a nest site again and a pied wagtail on the bowling green. Redwings were down to 5 and they've probably flown back to Scandinavia by now. Also recorded: 3 blackbirds, 1 blackcap, 3 blue tits, 4 crows, 1 collared dove (heard only), 2 dunnock, 2 goldfinches, 2 great tits, 4 house sparrows, 2 magpies, 2 ring-necked parakeets, 10 robins, 8 starlings, 1 stock dove (again!), 8 woodpigeons and 8 wrens.
Dunnock on HF (doesn't always look this pretty)
Can't finish without mentioning our new booklet, Birds of Hilly Fields, produced by the Friends of Hilly Fields. It's been selling well, despite lockdown, and the feedback has been good, but we still have plenty of copies in stock. At present, it's available online (see link below) and can be purchased either by itself at £3.50 or with a tote cotton bag and postcards for £10. The link is https://supportmylocal.org/store/rachel-mooney/We deliver to your door within a radius of 2 miles and all profits go to the Friends of Hilly Fields.
Rupert King has provided this report on the two person Dawn Chorus Walk on 2 April!
Sadly, as with so many community events, the 2020 Dawn Chorus Walk around Hilly Fields Park had to be cancelled. So instead I met Rachel at 6.00am in the Shade Garden (next to the Bowling Club) to do our own Dawn Chorus Walk – while maintaining social distancing of course! It was a chilly start, overcast but still. The first songbirds we encountered were a blackbird, a robin, a wren and a dunnock, while a great tit called loudly above us. As we moved south along the perimeter path we came upon the large flock of resident sparrows busily chattering away in the dense bushes that line the rear gardens. Such a joyful sound!
The walk began to liven up as we reached the southeast boundary of the park with its rich mix of trees and shrubs: a song thrush singing loudly, some wood pigeons cooing softly and a greater spotted woodpecker hammering out his message across the park. We saw a small flock of redwings – winter visitors that will soon be flying north back to Scandinavia.
By the time we reached the Nature Area (south of the Stone Circle) the sun was rising – there was a brief blaze of colour on the eastern horizon before the sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud. As we hoped the Nature Area provided a proper chorus of birdsong this time including two rival blackcaps, a chiffchaff (our first summer visitors) and some twittering goldfinches. We were very pleased to see that a pair of great tits is now building a nest in a new Schwegler nest box – just 2 weeks after it was put up!
Male Blackcap
As we listened intently to the birds we couldn’t help but notice how quiet the background noise was for a change. Just two planes passed overheard during our walk and traffic along the busy Adelaide Avenue has been reduced to a trickle.
Male Chaffinch
We carried on up Eastern Road with its rich mix of hawthorn and bramble scrub – perfect habitat for birds! Plenty of birdlife here and we discovered a wood pigeon sitting on a nest concealed in ivy. As we reached the top of the road we came upon two male chaffinches behaving very differently: one singing from a tree, the other attacking its own reflection in the wing mirror of a parked car! I have seen this obsessive behaviour before with dunnocks and pied wagtails. Indeed the bird was so obsessed we were able to approach to within a few feet to record it. When we saw a female chaffinch nearby we wondered aloud which male she might prefer?!
The highlight of our walk was undoubtedly the sight of two noisy nuthatches who have taken over another Schwegler nest box near the tennis courts. This is a remarkable development. Personally I only started seeing nuthatches for the first time in the park and nearby cemetery last autumn. Now they are nesting in the park!
Nuthatch at nestbox
During our walk we also saw several carrion crows (two pairs are nesting in the park), magpies, ring necked parakeets, starlings and blue tits. On our return to the Shade Garden we saw a pair of greater spotted woodpeckers and a solitary stock dove high up in the canopy – a bit of a rarity in the park. So in all we saw 21 bird species and heard a lot of birdsong. A successful walk and a delightful way to start the day!
Cow parsley at chest height greeted us by the Lower Vicar's Hill entrance on 25 May when Sue and I carried out the monthly bird survey. We were also greeted by the song of the Chaffinch, the Wren and the Great Tit - the latter for once actually sounding like 'teacher, teacher' as Bill Oddie has described it. It is unusual to hear a Chaffinch in that location, but in fact we heard it singing almost everywhere we went in the park. Either it followed us around or the bird has multiplied. Usually we see only one or two - if that.
Female Chaffinch in the Shade Garden
What became evident as our survey progressed is that the breeding season has become the feeding season. Great Tits, Blue Tits and House Sparrows in particular have chicks to feed and there was much frantic foraging activity by the parent birds. Every year, we have seen how bedraggled Tits become by the end of June, exhausted by the constant to and fro-ing from nest to food source and back again. In fact, there is evidence that Tits time their breeding to coincide with the maximum availability of caterpillars as these are the best and most popular foodstuff for the young. I watched a Blue Tit nest elsewhere last week and estimated that the parents were bringing food 40 times per hour over a 16 hour day. (See here for a charming children's story which describes the cycle). Normally they have only brood per year which is not surprising.
Blue Tit with caterpillar (Credit:Steve Larkins)
Of course, one big risk at this time of year is that the chicks may become food themselves. We saw a graphic example of this in the upper part of Eastern Road when Sue observed a Jay with a fledgling Great Tit in its beak. Before it could get very far, a Magpie descended and, as the bigger bird, snatched the fledgling from the Jay and began to peck at it in the road before flying off with it. In the background, the parent birds were making an almighty noise though rather helplessly. Alas, most Corvids will eat eggs and snatch birds at the nestling or fledging stage, as will Great Spotted Woodpeckers. Sometimes, it's a bird eat bird world.
In the shade garden next to the bowling green, a pair of House Sparrows were repeatedly diving into the cow parsley, then flying off presumably with seeds for their young. And a fledgling Great Tit perched on the branch of a tree was shaking its wings in a begging display while the parents brought it morsels of food. Fledglings will often leave the nest a day or two before they're ready to fly.
Great Tit wing-shake begging display (Credit|: Rémi Bigonneau)
In all, we saw or heard a respectable 18 species during this survey (see below). It will be interesting to see if the Starlings are still there in June as they and their young tend to disappear in the summer months. The number of Wrens is an estimate as they are difficult to see, particularly when foliage is in full bloom. But they were singing loudly and as they stay in their territories, a reasonably accurate count can be made. Surprisingly, we neither saw nor heard our two resident warblers - the Blackcap and Chiffchaff - but I suspect they're still lurking.
The sun shone on 24 February when Sue, Judith and I carried out the monthly bird survey. It was a day when spring seemed to have arrived early as if to compensate for all the stormy weather of the previous two months. The ground was still sodden in places but buds were growing on the trees, the crocuses were out and the birds were calling and singing all over the park. Blue Tits were particularly active and Great Tits with their insistent repeated calls were particularly vocal. Robins were singing more or less everywhere, Wrens kept erupting in flurries of notes and trills and we heard a Great Spotted Woodpecker drilling for the first time this year on the edge of the wood. But not all the birds were touting for partners. Some, like this Woodpigeon, were happy just to sit in the branches and soak up the sun...
On Eastern Road, someone told me about a small flock of Chaffinches that frequent her Veda Road back garden. This was interesting because we never see many Chaffinches on Hilly Fields and, for that reason, haven't devoted much blog space to the bird. However, we saw two later that morning including the cute female pictured below in the shade garden shrubbery. The distinctions between male and female Chaffinches can be seen in the Bird Champion notice board pictured at the end of this post, but briefly the male has a blue crown and pinkish cheeks and breast while the female has a grey head and browner cheeks and breast. Both have very distinctive black and white wing patterns. Their song is also very distinctive and easily remembered. The RSPB Handbook describes it as 'a descending series of trills that accelerates and ends with a flourish'. There are plenty of clips on You Tube and I've added one below.
(Credit: Ari Fink)
There were fewer Starlings around this month but they could still be heard in the trees. Starlings are famous mimics and copy all sorts of things including other bird calls, car alarms, phone ringtones and the wolf whistle. In fact, the gift of mimicry makes them potential social historians. The author Henry Williamson, who lived as a boy on Eastern Rd, set one of his novels The Dark Lantern in Victorian Brockley and describes the following:
'a starling was uttering its medley of local sounds and noises: errand-boy whistles, clopping of horses feet, milko! morning cry of milkman...cling-a-ling! of muffin-man's bell, bleat of sheep on the Hill, thin imitations of the songs of thrushes and other garden birds'.
I wonder what sounds the Starling might be mimicking a hundred years from now? Incidentally, that reference to 'bleat of sheep on the Hill' refers to a time when ewes and lambs were kept in a fold alongside the 'Grammar school' on Hilly Fields.
After two and a half hours of mooching about, we recorded a healthy total of 20 different species. In addition to those already noted, we saw 16 Common Gulls, 6 Black-headed Gulls, 5 House Sparrows, 3 gorgeous Greenfinches, 3 Crows, 3 Feral Pigeons, 2 each of Blackbird, Goldfinch, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie and Ring-necked Parakeet and a single lonesome Dunnock. Finally, thanks to Lee, our park-keeper, for promptly removing the graffiti which some underdeveloped human being had scrawled all over the Bird Champion notice behind the cafe. I'm glad to say it's now restored to its former lopsided beauty.
It was an overcast but warm day on 26 June when Sue and I carried out our monthly survey. The tree foliage is now quite dense which makes it harder to spot the small birds but what we couldn't see, we heard - at least 8 Blackbirds and 8 Great Tits, at least 5 Blue Tits and 5 Wrens and at least 4 Robins. Sue also heard a quick burst of Chiffchaff song and, earlier in the month (18 June), actually watched it singing for some time in the Eastern Rd area, so it does seem as if the bird has stuck around this year. It was noticeable how bedraggled and frazzled some of the birds looked which is hardly surprising given the demands of the breeding season - the constant daily search for food, the need to defend the nest and distract predators (and bird watchers). An exception was the Great Tit below which left its tree trunk nest at a speed greater than my camera could cope with (I won't try the old 'artistic blurring' excuse)...
We saw three Long-tailed Tits, heard both a Blackcap and a Dunnock singing in the Eastern Rd/wood area, saw a single Swift overheard and also saw or heard Goldfinches, Magpies, Crows, Feral and Wood Pigeons, Ring-necked Parakeets, Starlings, House Sparrows and a single but very vocal Chaffinch - 19 species in all. We haven't paid that much attention to the Chaffinch on this blog partly because, although it's a 'regular', it's not very numerous on Hilly Fields. It's an attractive bird and, nationally, one of our commonest - the RSPB estimates nearly 6 million breeding pairs in the UK. One can usually be found singing around the front of the school building in the trees next to the playground and tennis courts (anyone who came on this year's Dawn Chorus walk will remember the fine view we had of a female Chaffinch singing outside the school) and, like the Chiffchaff, has a song that's very easy to remember - a series of fast descending notes ending in a short trill. This clip gives a fine view of the male Chaffinch (the female is drabber and greener) and a recording of its song:
Meanwhile, in other nature news, the May blossom on the hawthorns has gone along with the white cow parsley and creamy horse chestnut flowers. It's now the turn of the Elder trees and bushes to put on their white floral display along with briar roses in the borders and Pyracantha. All three could be found last week behind the school with the magnificent Pyracantha attracting bees by the busload. Go and see it while it's there!
I don't want to sound wildly optimistic but I think we may have reached a turning point. With temperatures soaring into double figures (19°C promised on Sunday), things are changing on Hilly Fields and no doubt elsewhere. On Wednesday morning, at least a dozen Redwings (with a few Fieldfares mixed in) were twittering excitedly in the West Field trees alongside Montague Avenue. It sounded as if they knew that the time was approaching for their delayed (by bad weather) flight back to Scandinavia. Sure enough, when I led a group of dawn chorus walkers over there the following morning at 06.30 hrs, the trees were silent.
Redwing in one of the West Field trees - red under the wing and a white stripe over the eye
The Black-headed Gulls departed sometime over the weekend. Today, Friday, I noticed one or two Common Gulls overhead but there was no sign of the usual flock on the grass, so they too have presumably gone forth to multiply. I also saw this morning, however, the two resident Mistle Thrushes singing for the first time this year and heard a Chiffchaff singing in one of the Eastern Road hawthorns. The Chiffchaff is a spring migrant which flies to the UK each year from the Med and West Africa - an olive brown warbler about the size of a Blue Tit. They have been arriving more slowly than usual, presumably because of the weather and there have been reports of them flopping in exhaustion on reaching the south coast beaches. But one at least has made it this far and they've also been heard in other nearby locations. The Chiffchaff is not always easy to spot, but its song is very distinctive and easily remembered.
Elsewhere, nest building is going on apace. A Crow's nest can be seen high in one of the London Plane trees on the northern border of the bowling green and the resident Magpies are nesting at the top of one of the Eastern Road hawthorns. A little further down Eastern Road just past the green gates, Long-tailed Tits have built a nest in a bramble bush, but it seems to have been abandoned. We can't be sure why, but it is a bad location - too close to the pavement and too vulnerable - and their nests also suffer from a high level of predation by other species.
Changes are visible in the plant world too where there really are "green shoots of recovery" to be seen. Cow Parsley is spreading across the ground, particularly around the lower Vicars Hill entrance, ready to accompany the May blossom next month. And the wild Sweet Violets which Nick Bertrand pointed out to us on the Rivers and People walk last month are now coming into flower. Look for a bright green patch just off the path which runs alongside the Cliffview Rd border. On the whole, there is much to look forward to in the coming weeks.
The dawn chorus walk on Thursday was well attended. 15 people turned up at 6 am after a night's rain which was still lightly persisting. Naturally, we heard Great Tits calling everywhere, Wrens with their mighty trilling song, a Blackbird singing beautifully on Eastern Road and saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker high in a tree on the Adelaide Avenue border. Nothing spectacular but sometimes the simplest things can mesmerise. People were much taken by the sight of a female Chaffinch singing on a low branch only a few feet in front of us outside the school. After Hilly Fields, we went on to the Brockley and Ladywell cemeteries where we heard Robins (strangely quiet on Hilly Fields), a Dunnock and, in the distance, the laughing call of a Green Woodpecker - though not everybody heard that, including me! However, everybody did hear a Song Thrush repeating its varied phrases (as many as a hundred in its repertoire) from the top of a tree.
Here's what a Green Woodpecker looks like and what it's laughing call or "yaffle" sounds like:
The cemeteries are of Victorian origin and, as well as containing much local history, they are in effect a nature reserve in the heart of Lewisham. In fact, the council has listed them as a Grade 1 Site of Borough Importance for biodiversity and nature conservation purposes. The Friends of Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries have their own website - http://www.foblc.org.uk/ - and hold guided walks. The next one is on Sunday 21st April starting from the Brockley Road gate at 2pm and lasting about 1 hour 45 mins. Thanks to Lewisham Council for allowing us access to the cemeteries outside normal hours, special thanks to Mike Guilfoyle from the Friends who came along at 7 am to unlock the gate for us and thanks to Rachel for publicising the event via Facebook and http://www.hilly.org.uk/
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