Weedon’s World
Mike’s latest flavour of the month is a charismatic LBJ which is traditionally very hard to get to see well in this country
Mike on a charismatic LBJ which can be hard to see in this country
The Water Pipit is a bird which always keeps you at arm’s length and is very difficult to get to know. But I have, in the last month or so, become somewhat obsessed by these curious LBJS. As you will know if you read Dominic Couzens’ fascinating piece in the February BW, Water Pipits are weird birds. Although closely related to Rock Pipits, those stalwarts of rocky coasts, Water Pipits nest in high mountainous areas in continental Europe. It is only in the non-breeding season that they head downhill, north and west, to winter in grassy, reedy wetlands (nothing like the breeding grounds) and live up to their name. Back in the noughties, when guiding reader holidays to the Picos de Europa, I first became somewhat familiar with Water Pipits in their breeding habitat, the rocky alpine terrain, where their little pipity songflights are very much part of the soundtrack of the high ground. In Britain, though, I first encountered them on the scrapes of Cley in north Norfolk, and later became more familiar with them as annual winterers in small numbers to my favourite local site, the Nene Washes. There, they live up to their notoriously shy and skittish reputation, but for most of the nearly 20 years I have lived here, they were reasonably reliable year ticks (if not giving anything like satisfying views, in most winters/springs). In the last few years, they have become very tough to see on the washes, though, with very few, or no wintering individuals. In fact last year, it wasn’t until 21 April (pretty late by Water Pipit standards), that I finally encountered a fly-by, calling bird, in spring plumage (so late, in fact, that I had to fend off accusations of stringiness). And that was that, until mid-december. I was casting a birding eye over what we call the ‘wader pit’ of the pit complex near the villages of Baston and Langtoft (BLGP) in south Lincolnshire, when a long-winged pipit flew over as a silhouette calling ‘feest’. I thought it might be a Rock Pipit, but couldn’t see where it landed, so wasn’t sure. Then, over Christmas, former Baston and Langtoft patchworker Josh Jones was working his old haunts and found a Water Pipit on this ‘wader pit’. Was this the big pipit I’d had earlier in the month? We will never know. Anyhow, inspired by the pipit find there, my friend Will Bowell and I went to check what looked like prime WP habitat at the flooded fields at Baston Fen NR, only a couple of miles away from BLGP. Within 15 minutes, we had seen three Water Pipits flying around, calling. And so, into January, and I was drawn once more to check Baston Fen for these mysterious mountainbreeding, water-hugging, brown jobs. And, within minutes, at least one Water Pipit revealed itself among a flock of Meadow Pipits, but it was too windy to give the area a thorough check. Nearly a week later, Lincs birder Dave Roberts found there were at least seven Water Pipits at Baston Fen. And a couple of days later, Will and I were back at the site and found at least 12, with perhaps 13, including clusters of six or more feeding together. Considering that the RSPB site suggests that the entire UK wintering population of Water Pipits is fewer than 200 birds, then we were looking at perhaps a fifteenth of the entire British population hanging out at one small site. Yes, the RSPB/BTO figure is probably a massive underestimate; these are very shy and elusive birds, favouring obscure, undisturbed, vegetated and probably largely underwatched wetland sites. But, still, this flock of 12 or 13 birds was something special, certainly the largest flock I have ever seen in the UK (let alone in the Peterborough area). And they were and still are (as I write) giving better views than I have ever had of local Water Pipits. They are great little characters, looking almost more like little thrushes than Meadow Pipits; heavy-billed, long-tailed, dark-lored, white-bellied and plain-backed, with deliciously cold plumage. And it is fascinating to think of these little paddlers and damp vegetation-pickers as having been ‘born’ on a rocky mountaintop somewhere. I am completely hooked on them; returning several times for more views of these scarce weirdos. I will be back, again, too, and am hoping they will stay to transform into the pink and blue spring colours. Brown, streaky little birds they may be, but I love them.
we were looking at perhaps 1/15 of the entire British population