The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a registered charity:

England and Wales no. 207076, Scotland no. SC037654

Bedford RSPB Local Group Quarterly

Newsletter

June 2017

Group News

The Group enjoyed fabulous weather for their June events – an

evening walk at Broom Gravel Pits and a trip to the Ouse Washes &

North Norfolk to see Black-winged Stilts and Nightjars. The trip to

Norfolk was a particular success with at least 88 bird species seen

and several members seeing some species for the first time. To find

out more keep an eye on the ‘Trip Reports’ page on the web site.

The final evening walk of the summer is on Thursday 13th July,

meeting at The Dovecote car park, Willington, at 7 p.m. See you

there…

The Group will have a publicity stand at the Ampthill Festival Gala

Day in Ampthill Park on Sunday 2nd July. Why not pop along and say

hello?

A spectacular indoor meeting program is planned for 2018 - read all

about it on page 5 and let friends and family know too.

For many months now the Group has undertaken an extensive

membership recruitment campaign, organised by John Hayward and

supported by committee and non-committee members. The result is

that our paid-up membership for this year is the highest since

records began.

We were recently asked by RSPB Eastern England, who were aware

of the success of the campaign, to write an article on how it was

achieved. John Hayward and John Tomlin duly produced the article

and below is the response received from Drew Lyness, Local Groups

and Volunteering Support Officer, RSPB Eastern England:

‘This is an excellent article and it really does showcase how a good

promotion of the group can generate new members. Fantastic work.

This is something which I would be keen to share with other Local

Groups in the region, and will probably turn it into a News and Views

article. Well done to all involved. Great stuff!’

Congratulations to John H and everyone involved in the campaign.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS:

July

Thursday 13th July

Evening Walk. Willington. Meet at 7pm at the Dovecote car park.

Sunday 16th July

A visit to Rye Harbour & Pett

Levels for high tide waders and

summer visitors. NB - 7 am start.

September

Thursday 21st September

Barrie Mason presents ‘The

Splendour of Scotland’ – another

of his many exciting and

colourful wildlife trips.

Sunday 24th September

A visit to Gibraltar Point,

Lincolnshire for migrants and sea

birds.

NB - 7 am start.

Wallcreepers in the Dordogne - March 2017 In March (2017) Pete and I had a short holiday in the Dordogne, south west France. It was an organised trip

booked through The Travelling Naturalist, flying out on Tuesday 7th March and returning on Saturday 11th March.

The title of the trip was ‘Wallcreepers, Woodpeckers and Kites of the Dordogne’. Our wish list for a holiday

included seeing some early migrants and maybe one or two special birds, picturesque scenery, and hopefully

some sunshine. This trip seemed to tick all the boxes and in particular, the possibility of seeing a Wallcreeper was

very appealing. Living and breeding in mountainous areas like the Pyrenees, Wallcreepers move to the lowlands in

winter such as the Dordogne and Provence, where they can be found on natural limestone cliffs along river

valleys, and on walls of churches, castles and other buildings.

We were due to fly from Stansted to Bergerac, which is half an hour’s drive from our hotel in Mauzac.

Unfortunately, the trip got off to a bad start as we arrived at Stansted to find that Ryanair had cancelled the flight,

and the next one was not until Saturday morning! However, in no time at all the Travelling Naturalist staff had

arranged an alternative flight to Bordeaux from Gatwick later in the day, a taxi to take us to Gatwick, and for our

trip leader, David, to collect us from Bordeaux. After an unexpectedly long day’s travelling we arrived at the hotel

at 10.45 p.m., tired but hoping that all the gremlins of the holiday had been encountered in the outbound trip and

that we could now look forward to an enjoyable birding holiday. And so it turned out.

The hotel was called Le Barrage and was situated on the banks of the River Dordogne at Mauzac. It was a

picturesque traditional French hotel run by Amanda, a Brit who took over managing the hotel from her aunt.

Despite the late night, next morning Pete and I were up

and out at first light for our usual spot of pre-breakfast

birding. Wandering along the river, we started our trip

list with Black Redstart, Firecrest, Blackcap, Grey

Wagtail, and Cetti’s Warbler. Back at the hotel,

breakfast was taken with the other couple on the trip,

Nadine & John, who were touring France and had made

their own way to the hotel the previous day.

We were excited and eager to set off after breakfast as the

main focus of the day was to find a Wallcreeper. It was a

cool morning with some misty rain so David decided to try

the castle at Beynac first where the birds might go to find

shelter. The dull weather was forgotten as we arrived at

Beynac and saw the medieval streets and impressive 12th

century castle built from the local honey-coloured

limestone. We spent a good hour or more searching the castle and grounds but the only Wallcreeper seen was by

David, who got a glimpse of one before it flew away.

Moving on, we made a stop at a nearby quarry, where we scoped an Eagle Owl on a nest. This enigmatic bird sat

like a sphinx on the rocky shelf and seemed to be looking straight at us. Nearby we spotted Marsh Tit, Stonechat

and Short-toed Treecreeper.

Cont’d ….

Hotel Le Barrage

Beynac Castle

After a lunch break in Les Eyzies, we resumed the

Wallcreeper quest. A brief check of the stunning street

cliffs in Les Eyzies proved fruitless, but following that we

went to the church at Tayac and almost immediately found

a Wallcreeper.

At first all we could see was a smallish grey and black bird

clinging to the stone wall but after a few minutes it set off,

probing cracks and crevices in the walls and roof for insects,

constantly flicking its wings to reveal red feathers which are

hidden at rest. We were all delighted with this truly

beautiful bird and as it was giving such great views we

spent a long time watching it and taking photos and video.

It reminded us of a large butterfly, flicking its brightly coloured wings. Later, as I was discussing the Wallcreeper

with Amanda, she summed it up perfectly... she said they make her think of a probationary nun – outwardly

dressed in drab grey and black but every now and then flashing scarlet knickers hidden underneath. I couldn’t

have put it better myself.

While at Tayac we also saw Nuthatch, Raven, Crag Martins and Swallows. For the rest of the day we travelled to

Grand Roc, Limeuil and the viewpoint at Trémolat above the River Dordogne, along the way seeing Peregrine

Falcons courting and mating, Great White and Cattle Egrets, and Cirl Bunting, as well as the spectacular cliffs at

Grand Roc with dwellings built into the cliff face.

The first day of the trip had exceeded all our expectations, but

the remaining days were just as memorable. Our final trip list

for the holiday totalled 87 species and included four species

of woodpeckers - Black, Lesser-spotted, Middle-spotted and

Great Spotted; three kites - Red, Black and Black-winged, plus

Hawfinch, Serin, Dartford Warbler, Goshawk and Osprey.

To give a complete account of our holiday would be too much

to fit into to this article, but if you’d like to read the full trip

report the link below will take you to a PDF version on the

Travelling Naturalist web site:

http://www.naturalist.co.uk/pdf/europe-france-wallcreepers-

woodpeckers-kites-dordogne-tour-report-mar17.pdf.

If you’re looking for an early birding break to blow away the winter blues, I definitely recommend heading to

south-west France.

Gen Carpenter

Tayac Church

Wallcreeper

Wallcreeper feeding

Grand Roc

How well do you know your RSPB reserves?

John Tomlin

From the cryptic clues below see if you can identify the RSPB reserve. (Answers at bottom of page 5)

1) Tiny source for natural water (9)

2) Large body of inland water in shrubby uncultivated land (10)

3) Pigsty partition (3 4)

4) Close to 25 millimetres in boggy area (4 7)

5) Linked to a local Buzzard but could be gathered if stationary (7 4)

6) Old horse drinks froth on beer (8)

7) Local Bedfordshire River used to apply thin coatings (4 6)

8) Not cold nor less (6)

9) Not good weather for birding with somebody who overacts on soft wet grounds (7 7)

10) Not really the thing to do when birding (4)

Your Answers:

1) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

3) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 4) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

5) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 6) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

7) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 8) _ _ _ _ _ _

9) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 10) _ _ _ _

When is a bird not a bird?

Golf provides a classic example of bird names being used for something other than birds:

Birdie = 1 under par, Eagle = 2 under par, Albatross = 3 under par, Condor = 4 under par, Ostrich = 5 under par

The size of the birds increases alongside the difficulty of receiving the score. A condor has only been achieved

four times and an ostrich never.

Bird names are amazingly common in our society and can often be found in our own names. There are notable

birders within our county who have a name reflecting their interest. These include Robin Edwards, Barry

Nightingale, Mike Bird, Sue Raven, Martin Palmer and our own Carolyn and Malcolm Hawkes.

There are many areas of housing where bird names are used for streets. I am aware that some of our members

live in what I think of as the ‘bird area’ of Starling Way, Larkway, Linnet Way, Hawk Drive, Eagle Gardens,

Rooksmead, Pipit Rise, Merlin Gardens, Kestrel Road, Mallard Hill, Linnet Hill, Kingfisher Close etc. etc. Less

surprisingly much of the new Fallowfield development in north Sandy has bird names. Most roads lead off the

main estate road Kestrel Way. I remember often watching kestrels ‘doing their thing’ over these fields before any

housing was built.

And finally – when I told a young man at the train station that I was going on a birding holiday I was reminded that

this could suggest something very different to him and his peers! Marion Hession

Forthcoming speaker attractions for 2018 – John Tomlin

18th January 2018 – speaker to be advised.

15th February 2018

Dick Newell from the “Action for Swifts” group will give us an informative talk into the world wide

action being taken to stop the decline in the Swift population by providing many types of artificial

nesting locations.

15th March 2018

Patrick Barkham, is a Natural History Writer for 'The Guardian' and the award-winning author of

‘The Butterfly Isles’ (our talk for this evening), ‘Badgerlands’, ‘Coastlines’ and latest book about

small islands around Britain, which includes visits to places such as the RSPB reserve on Rathlin,

Northern Ireland.

19th April 2018

Mark Ward, - Editor-in-Chief of Nature’s Home (RSPB Magazine). This evening’s talk is entitled

“16,000 Species and Counting”. An insight into the many different species all around us.

17th May 2018

Mike Leach (Dr.) is a full time wildlife author and photographer. He has travelled to all seven

continents and worked with many of the world's most charismatic animals - polar bears in the

Arctic, gorillas in central Africa, lemurs in Madagascar, sperm whales in the mid-Atlantic, monkeys

in the Amazon, penguins in the Antarctic and elephants in Kenya. Our talk this evening “Owls of

the World”.

20th September 2018

Steve Portugal - Senior Lecturer in Animal Behaviour & Physiology at the Royal Holloway University

of London. This evening’s’ talk is entitled “Bird Migration”.

18th October – speaker to be advised.

15th November 2018

Lloyd Peck (Professor) is a British physiologist who is a scientist with the British Antarctic

Survey and affiliated with the University of Cambridge. He is known for his research into

biological adaptations of animals to extreme cold, in particular sea spiders. Our talk this evening

'The Antarctic', compares the way humans combat the extreme Antarctic conditions with how

animals cope with the same environment.

20th December – speaker to be advised.

[Our member, Barrie Mason has kindly offered to speak to the group again in 2018 on one of his

many birding and wildlife adventures and will take one of the non-allocated dates.]

No meetings June, July & August

Answers: 1 – Titchwell; 2 – Lakenheath; 3 – Ham Wall; 4 – Insh Marshes; 5 – Leighton Moss; 6 –

Nagshead; 7 – Ouse Washes; 8 – Otmoor; 9 – Rainham Marhes; 10 – Yell.

Brambling

Winter plumaged Black-tailed Godwit

Pied Flycatcher

Wood Lark

Great Grey Shrike

Winter

plumaged

Dunlin

Brambling

Photo Gallery — by group members Sean D’Arcy & John Tomlin