Owl Herding

It’s a warm morning, and the riverside path is quiet. Three Cetti’s Warblers call and a Sedge Warbler tumbles up the bank and perches on a clump of tall grass, scolding as the dog ambles past. But far fewer Reed Warblers or Reed Buntings are calling than a few days back. They are still here, though, most obvious when they cross the river between the reed bed on the far side and the ditches and cropped fields on this. The heads of the male Reed Buntings gleam like black-glossed bullets as they make their uncompromising flights, unlike the Reed Warblers flitting mouse-like across the water. Thin calls by the river reveal two Common Sandpipers flying to one of the few remaining areas of mud left by the rising tide. In late May and early June it would be hard to say whether they were birds late heading north or early returning south. By now they are probably birds on return passage, though the species is so rarely absent from the river it seems like an honorary resident. Meanwhile

The early days of summer can be a time of surprises. The local Swifts arrived a while back, yet a few days ago almost ninety appeared by the river, feeding for an hour above the water meadows before moving on, presumably to points much further north. It’s a time not only of surprises but also of uncertainty. Waders appear in summer plumage, but whether they are laggards journeying to the arctic or the first returning birds isn’t clear. The absence of bird song may indicate not an absence of birds but a frenzy of nesting. And it is a time when a Hobby scything past may be a very late migrant, or an undiscovered local breeder. Then there are the things that are simply perplexing, like the Black Guillemot seen occasionally between Climping Beach and Elmer Rocks since December 2017. Sightings in early May were late enough, but its continued presence on June 11 is unaccountable. The bird also called tystie or doveky should be well north of here by now, in Scotland, Ireland or beyond.