I learnt a very helpful piece of information during a recent weekend’s birding (14th-17th April): bird for spring migrants on a rainy day with a south-east wind blowing. It seemed counterintuitive to this fairly fair-weather birder and walker until the science behind it was fathomed: if it’s sunny, passage migrants from southerly climes will probably just keep on going, talking advantage of the good conditions to continue to their breeding grounds further north – Scottish mountains for the ring ouzel, upland areas for the whinchat, and sometimes even further, to Greenland for the wheatear, for example. However, on a rainy day, they might decide to stop at a suitable ploughed field or thick hedgerow where they can wait out the weather and refuel.
Numerous wheatears had decided to do just that on a very wet and dull Friday afternoon – the first ploughed field at Oglet from Bailey’s Lane was jumping with them. It was difficult to estimate the number because the birds kept disappearing down the furrows before popping back up again, although another birder had reported 16 that morning, along with a female ring ouzel, and a yellow and three white wagtails. This birding bonanza had strengthened my and a friend’s resolve to go out, despite the weather, and we were well rewarded with excellent views of all the species, with the yellow wagtail shining particularly brightly against the dark, loamy background.
We called it a day after two great if damp hours, but were soon on the way back, in pleasanter conditions, when another birder reported a male ring ouzel and a male common redstart at the same site.
I have only ever had one view of the latter – and it was very distant, through a scope – so I was extremely keen to see this one. We were lucky with the ring ouzel: it pottered in and out at the bottom of the hedgerow for a few minutes before being chased off by a pair of blackbirds, who proceeded to sit up high: a clear indication to the ring ouzel to ‘keep off our patch’. Other birders, arriving shortly afterwards, were disappointed, but one had a brief glimpse of the common redstart, which unfortunately eluded us.
I’d planned a non-birding day on Sunday but a report of the first grasshopper warbler of the year the previous evening at Oglet had tempted me and my friend to revise our plans. Good job we did! Five minutes from the site and her phone ‘pinged’: whinchat in view. We pulled up and spotted the bird perched on top of a cut hedge overlooking the favoured ploughed field.
The birder who found it had been there since dawn and had experienced an otherwise quiet morning. That, plus the fact that it was cold and miserable and even the sight of numerous wheatears and wagtails mooching around the ploughed field couldn’t quite get the blood flowing to my freezing fingers, meant we quickly moved to Friday night’s hedgerow for a quick look for the ring ouzel and common redstart, not really expecting to find them, but bingo! The redstart flicked out onto the ground and back up into cover almost immediately. It worked its way away from us and, as we waited for its return, a police van went past. We tried not to look shifty, which is hard when you are loitering seemingly aimlessly and clutching binoculars. On the way back, the officers stopped and asked us – with interest, not suspicion – what we were doing. We regaled them with tales of migrant birds battling their way to these shores, and they had the grace to look interested.
Back to the ploughed field and another birder had just watched two female ring ouzel fly in, so we stopped to look for them and had another pleasant chat, too. We finally left but didn’t get very far, as we spotted a female ring ouzel by the airport fence. We were joined by other birders and we all stood and watched this bird until she disappeared from view.
In my limited experience, ring ouzel tend to stick to the ground along the fence line here, perhaps preferring the safety – and food options – of the grassier, hedge-lined areas to the vast expanses of empty soil that attract the chats and wagtails. Redstarts prefer the cover of hedges, from where they fly out, hover briefly over the grass to pick up an insect, then flash back into the safety of the vegetation. But these are general observations, not rules: the following morning, I saw a wheatear in the treetops in the field next to River Oaks Wood at Otterspool!
We called in – very briefly – at Speke-Garston Coastal Reserve, just in case a gropper had arrived as the Oglet one had been neither seen nor heard, but our hearts, minds and legs weren’t in it anymore. It had been a wonderful long weekend building up knowledge – including the additional weather lore that if it’s a northerly wind, even if it’s an otherwise OK day, birds migrating north might stop off for a while rather than battling their way into it – and connecting with people and birds, and I even found time on the Saturday to go to Cheshire for a new pair of binoculars (The light! The light!) and to the allotment before having a late afternoon stroll around Speke-Garston Coastal Reserve.
Do it all again tomorrow? Why not!