| Hunting Snipe on the Heath |
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Sounds like what one might do when bored of hunting jabberwock, but actually it’s what I found myself doing on West Heath early last Sunday morning. First light, cold and damp, the boys who make West Heath their nightly playground for naughtiness had gone home, and the dog lovers and jog lovers, were still in bed dreaming of bones and firmer flesh. My companions and I had the Heath to ourselves. And thanks to the finest optics German engineering can devise, our binoculars soon began picking out the Heath feathered beauties. We saw a slate blue sparrowhawk fluffed up against the cold; a green woodpecker yaffling right over our heads; plenty of treecreepers like white-bellied mice spiralling up the oaks and beech, then flying back down to start afresh; and plenty of nuthatches too showing that its possible for certain birds to climb down a tree as well as up. We saw flocks of redwing fleeing continental temperatures that must make the Heath feel positively balmy, raiding the holly for berries; and large flocks of tits flitted from tree to tree. Long tailed tits, blue tits, great tits, a few coal tits, and mixed among them to our delight the occasional goldcrest our smallest bird. More delightful still was the loud zzzz that took our eyes high into the trees where a firecrest gave us fleeting glimpses. An uncommon relative of the goldcrest, and the first one I had ever seen! Still no sign of the snipe though, nor of the woodcock that were also said to be on the Heath. It was then that my far more knowledgeable companions revealed to me the secret of seeing snipe and woodcock. Not for these birds a careful creeping approach on Hush Puppy shoes. These birds need a goodly amount of loud conversation and blundering about to show themselves. Impossible to see on the ground as they are so well camouflaged its only when they take flight that you’ll ever get a chance to see them. And even then you’ve got to be lucky as they’ll sit so tight you can walk right past them without even noticing. So out we spread and off we set into the densest brambles on the farthest edge of West Heath. And two muddy knees and many more scratches later a couple of woodcock took flight. Sadly for me I was extricating myself from a bush following a near forward roll into its waiting thorns and I saw not a feather of them. All seemed hopeless as I took another tumble and so I turned and started struggling back up to the path when...BOOM... a snipe exploded into the air right in front of me. A fine looking bird in lovely brown tweeds flashing its russet rump at me for certain identification. Success at the last! The complete list: Black headed gull, long tailed tit, blackbird, robin, great tit, blue tit, wood pigeon, carrion crow, feral pigeon, jay, wren, magpie, greater spotted woodpecker, kestrel, starling, chaffinch, green woodpecker, treecreeper, herring gull, song thrush, heron, mute swan, goldcrest, canada goose, coal tit, nuthatch, dunnock, redwing, mallard, firecrest, snipe. |