Sunday 8th January (A Dawn Chorus with Owls and Pigeons)


Mr. Kite looked out of The Joint window into the greenery of the shrubs as dawn was rising in the east. Owls screeched, wood pigeons cooed and song thrushes sang. Mr. Kite looked carefully for the owls but could not see them as they moved around calling. Never mind the sound was enough.

Following breakfast Mr. Kite saddled The Beast and cycled towards RSPB Fowlmere. On this cloudy still morning Mr. Kite saw the usual birds but looked carefully into the bare trees for woodpeckers and the fields for grey partridge; all in vain.

At eleven Mr. Kite was in the calm reserve at Fowlmere. The first stop was Drewer's Hide overlooking reedbeds and a little water. A muntjac deer paddled in the shallow water as a green woodpecker flew overhead and landed on the trunk of a tall poplar tree before climbing towards the top. Then three reed buntings drops from the sky into the reeds before disappearing into the middle.

Mr. Kite walked along the paths by a clear babbling stream that in the warmer weather would hold brown trout and bullheads; but today it was just water without fish. Spring Hide was the next stopping place to look over the water where only a moorhen was out. The alder trees overhanging the hide looked a good spot for siskins and lesser redpolls but today they were elsewhere.

The last hide to be visited was the raised Reedbed Hide that overlooked a vast expanse of reeds and water. In the water mallards, teal, greylag geese, grey herons and moorhens swam, paddled and fed. Mr. Kite then cycled back to Cherry hinton stopping to watch a flock of redwings and fieldfares. The fields still did not reveal a partridge.

Late in the afternoon Mrs. Kite put an apple core out for a friendly robin that lived in a bush near The Joint. The robin enjoyed the core for five minutes before a grey squirrel appeared and moved the robin on. The squirrel picked up the core and took it into the bush and up a tree.

Following this Mr. Kite and His Lady went for a stroll around Cherry Hinton Chalk Pit to watch birds as the afternoon turned to dusk. Only one chaffinch and a robin were spotted. Mr. Kite returned for a tipple of Greene King Abbot Ale. Cheers.