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I read with interest the Go Birding Article on Thorney Island ( Bird Watching, Autumn). I even learned new things about a local area I love to visit. But two interesting wildlife observations were missing in the article.
The first is that Ospreys visit the Island during migration. The second is that a sizeable population of Harbour and Grey Seals (predominantly Harbour Seals) can be seen at low tide relaxing on the mud flats between Marker Point and Longmere Point, on the western side of Thorney Island. I have seen, on a number of occasions, as many as 35 seals in this area.
According to recent coverage by the BBC Countryfile programme, a study by Portsmouth University has identified as many as a hundred individual Harbour Seals that have visited Chichester Harbour.
The seven-mile walk around Thorney Island in an area of outstanding natural beauty can be enriching in many ways throughout the year; even though some of the paths can become muddy and slippery in autumn and winter.
Thank you for your interesting and useful article on Bearded Vultures ( BW, Autumn issue). I thought you might be amused by my own experience of the 2016 Dartmoor bird.
My wife Stella and I live in a Dartmoor village and, in a normal year, we do a lot of nest recording for the BTO Nest Record Scheme. On one early June day that year we were tucked down in the side of a valley, trying to work out where a particular Whinchat nest was, when my wife looked up and said “A huge bird has just landed in that little fir tree across the valley”.
I was intent on keeping my bins on the Whinchats so I said, “It’s probably a Buzzard”. After a short pause she said, “No, it’s much bigger, you really ought to look”. Me: “yeah, yeah in a minute. I’ve nearly cracked this nest”. But she was insistent, so to keep the peace I glanced up and, of course, it was the Bearded Vulture, which we knew had been seen around Dartmoor, but didn’t think it worthwhile trying to find it.
We watched it for about 10 minutes and then it casually glided off the tree and began to circle upwards. I watched it get higher and higher until, even with very good bins, I could barely see the tiny spot that appeared to be about a mile high and still climbing! I don’t know whether this bird has made it onto the official UK list but it is certainly a prize record on my UK life list. And of course the moral of this story is: Always listen to what your wife tells you!
Rob Hubble