Evening Birding at Cannock Chase
Keen to get out and see some different birds from those of the past few months, my dad and I went for an evening birding on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire on Saturday. We've never made the trip out here before, mostly because the journey along the M42 and A5 can be hellish in normal circumstances.
This trip ended up being a great one for socially-distanced birding and we didn't see a single other person the whole time! Our main targets were the trio of night birds available on the chase - Nightjar, Long-Eared Owl and Woodcock, but any other heathland/woodland specialities were very welcome.
Being new to the area, I'd done a bit of preliminary research, but pulled up at the Severn Springs car park at 7:30 without much of a plan. We followed a likely looking track out the back of the car park, heading left and soon racked up a long list of singing warblers, including Garden Warbler. As the woods thinned out, we enjoyed watching a Willow Warbler attending a nest hidden under some bracken and a distant Tree Pipit would have gone unidentified in the binoculars had it not been for the incredible zoom on my P900.
We could have easily stayed longer in this great woodland, and it felt very promising, but we wanted to make it to our main spot for the heathland birds before dark. Heading back along the path, I heard a high-pitched sound from the tops of the oaks and sure enough my first Spotted Flycatcher was perched high up in the canopy. It was soon clear there was a small flock of birds moving through the trees. We picked out more Spotted Flycatchers, my first Treecreeper for several months (!) and best of all I got a brief view of a male Pied Flycatcher, which dad sadly missed.
We drove the short distance around the heath to the Katyn Memorial area and parked over the road at the Springslade Lodge. It was only 8:30 and there was plenty of light left (with sunset being at 9:10) so we headed east down the track past the Katyn Memorial.
I'd read about this area on an old BirdForum thread and wondered whether it would still deliver, but sure enough as soon as the woodland opened out we spotted a Hobby hunting over the heath. It gave a nice fly-by in the evening light and sped off over the ridge. Stonechats sang from small bushes and a Kestrel hunted overhead.
Bird song was winding up but there was still a bit of activity so we were hoping for one more good bird before it got dark. Sure enough, a male Cuckoo flew by and landed on a post. It proceeded to 'cuckoo' for several minutes, only for another to join in on the other side of us! The two competed for a while before the first flew past and mobbed the other! This was one of the best sightings of Cuckoo I have had ever had, truly my favourite sound of the British spring. We saw 3 birds in our short time on the Chase.
By 9:10, we had covered a huge area of the heath (trying to keep walking to stave away the cold!) but for some reason it wasn't getting any darker! Even by 9:30, visibility was still astonishingly good. Whitethroat and Stonechat still sang from the bushes. We had a long journey home and were getting impatient for the darkness that we knew we desperately needed for a chance at Nightjar. Albeit a slim one - I thought - given that they like warm, still evenings with lots of insects and this was anything but!
We stuck it out though. And at 9:40 we started to walk back slowly towards the car, slightly disappointed that none of our target birds had showed. In birding I think I'm often responsible for losing hope too quickly - some of the best sightings are when you think you've missed out. And today was a lesson in that.
But it wasn't just one of the targets that showed as we walked back towards the car. It was all 3! About where the dotted heathland trees started to thicken into the woodland back to the car, I had a final scan and caught sight of an owl flying over the heathland ridge. Long-eared Owl! It was quite a brief sighting but incredible all the same. I've never seen one out hunting before. This was surely the most difficult of the 3 targets. No sooner had we seen the owl than a Nightjar started churring from the trees behind us. What an incredible sound. I've only heard Nightjar once before, on Aylesbeare Common in Devon, so hearing one so much closer to home was fantastic. The views we got as it flew up out of the woodland, where it had presumably been roosting for the day, were poor by anyone's estimation but that didn't matter - the sound is surely half the thrill. The next surprise came just minutes later when a strange call overhead (not the croaking call I was expecting) had us watching a low-flying Woodcock which gave great views. All 3 targets in five minutes!
Another Woodcock flying towards the heath as we arrived at the car, was a nice end to the day, until a Barn Owl flew low over the car just outside of Cannock, to make it even better. A fantastic evening's birding and certainly a place we will be visiting again!
This trip ended up being a great one for socially-distanced birding and we didn't see a single other person the whole time! Our main targets were the trio of night birds available on the chase - Nightjar, Long-Eared Owl and Woodcock, but any other heathland/woodland specialities were very welcome.
Being new to the area, I'd done a bit of preliminary research, but pulled up at the Severn Springs car park at 7:30 without much of a plan. We followed a likely looking track out the back of the car park, heading left and soon racked up a long list of singing warblers, including Garden Warbler. As the woods thinned out, we enjoyed watching a Willow Warbler attending a nest hidden under some bracken and a distant Tree Pipit would have gone unidentified in the binoculars had it not been for the incredible zoom on my P900.
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| While it doesn't look like much, this Tree Pipit was only just a dot through binoculars |
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| This photo gives an idea of distance - the bird was on the top of the back left dead stump |
We drove the short distance around the heath to the Katyn Memorial area and parked over the road at the Springslade Lodge. It was only 8:30 and there was plenty of light left (with sunset being at 9:10) so we headed east down the track past the Katyn Memorial.
I'd read about this area on an old BirdForum thread and wondered whether it would still deliver, but sure enough as soon as the woodland opened out we spotted a Hobby hunting over the heath. It gave a nice fly-by in the evening light and sped off over the ridge. Stonechats sang from small bushes and a Kestrel hunted overhead.
 |
| This young Stonechat looks like it had just fledged |
By 9:10, we had covered a huge area of the heath (trying to keep walking to stave away the cold!) but for some reason it wasn't getting any darker! Even by 9:30, visibility was still astonishingly good. Whitethroat and Stonechat still sang from the bushes. We had a long journey home and were getting impatient for the darkness that we knew we desperately needed for a chance at Nightjar. Albeit a slim one - I thought - given that they like warm, still evenings with lots of insects and this was anything but!
We stuck it out though. And at 9:40 we started to walk back slowly towards the car, slightly disappointed that none of our target birds had showed. In birding I think I'm often responsible for losing hope too quickly - some of the best sightings are when you think you've missed out. And today was a lesson in that.
But it wasn't just one of the targets that showed as we walked back towards the car. It was all 3! About where the dotted heathland trees started to thicken into the woodland back to the car, I had a final scan and caught sight of an owl flying over the heathland ridge. Long-eared Owl! It was quite a brief sighting but incredible all the same. I've never seen one out hunting before. This was surely the most difficult of the 3 targets. No sooner had we seen the owl than a Nightjar started churring from the trees behind us. What an incredible sound. I've only heard Nightjar once before, on Aylesbeare Common in Devon, so hearing one so much closer to home was fantastic. The views we got as it flew up out of the woodland, where it had presumably been roosting for the day, were poor by anyone's estimation but that didn't matter - the sound is surely half the thrill. The next surprise came just minutes later when a strange call overhead (not the croaking call I was expecting) had us watching a low-flying Woodcock which gave great views. All 3 targets in five minutes!
Another Woodcock flying towards the heath as we arrived at the car, was a nice end to the day, until a Barn Owl flew low over the car just outside of Cannock, to make it even better. A fantastic evening's birding and certainly a place we will be visiting again!
That was a great end to an evening out, Matt!
ReplyDeleteCannock Chase used to be the northernmost outpost for Dartford Warbler but, to the best of my knowledge, the colony was wiped out by a a massive fire over a huge area of the chase some years ago.
I had a self-found Hawfinch there one Christmas Day - reported it on Birdguides and lived to regret it, as it led to birders taking over the car park for a couple of months and causing problems with the locals who they were refusing admission to! According to one of the rangers who I spoke with some months later, there was physical violence as well as abuse!
It certainly was!
ReplyDeleteWow I had no idea Dartford Warbler ever came this far north! That's a real shame.
Also a shame about the Hawfinch situation, I am shocked it could escalate like that! I was there this January hoping to find a Hawfinch myself as it seems like a perfect spot for a wintering individual, that would be a lovely surprise to pick up the binoculars too.