Holiday ROMANCE
Thirty-minute birder Amanda Tuke starts to fall for gulls while on holiday in north Devon.
It’s no accident that the view from our holiday cottage window is as good, if not better, than from some bird hides nearer home. At low tide, there’s a rocky foreshore below the window, a shingle bank half a kilometre away in the middle of the estuary, and then, in the distance, mudflats in front of sand dunes.
A Little Egret returns to the same rock pool every day, as soon as it’s exposed. Balancing on one leg, it uses its other yellow foot to riffle the mud, and then picks through the silty soup for food. Curlews patrol the water’s edge, but are the first to go when dog walkers appear. The bolder Oystercatchers are finally spooked when a Peregrine wheels along the water’s edge, and they scatter, signalling their fear loudly. In the far distance, I see the pale angular shape of a Gannet, tracking along the edge of the shingle bank.
“This is great isn’t it, darling? I can birdwatch and chat to you at the same time”, I say over my shoulder. “Mmm”, he says, not looking up from his book. The Peregrine returns and this time banks round to pass within metres of the window. I get a fantastic view of its black hood and moustache even without the binoculars. I’m then informed that this was something my other half would have liked to be disturbed for. It’s oh so tricky to judge.
Family holidays and birdwatching don’t always go together comfortably, in my experience. It’s a delicate balancing act, which I’m going to try and get right on this year’s trip to the Taw-Torridge Estuary in north Devon.
Holidays are pretty much the only occasion when we go walking as a family, and the teens show any interest in birds. But I’ve learnt from experience not to overdo it – one sort of bird is quite enough for each walk, thank you very much. When it’s just the two of us walking round the headland one morning, my other half is entranced by ‘whitebums’; the Wheatears flicking in front of us and perching on the pebble ridge.
On another walk along the Torridge River, the 17-year-old wants to look through my binoculars at Little Egrets on the water’s edge. Everyone’s fine with me birding a bit, as long as they don’t have to wait for me too often.
Midway through the holiday, I’ve negotiated one whole day to myself, while the others go sailing. I decide to take a bus round the estuary
to Braunton on the north side. It’s an easy walk from the town itself to nearby Horsey Island, one of Devon Wildlife Trust’s newest reserves, and I’m pleased to spot a Greenshank en route. The reserve is bounded on the inland side by a sturdy sea defence bank built in the 1800s to reclaim what are now marshes and farmland. A second outer bank was built to enclose an extra 80 hectares of farmland, but this was breached a few years ago, letting the tides in through a gradually widening gap. Since the breach, the area between the banks has returned to saltmarsh and mudflats.
Local guide
I tuck myself into a patch of cord-grass on the inland bank, so I’m not silhouetted on the horizon. Today, there’s a bit of drizzle and so, for a couple of hours, it’s just me, the saltmarsh and the incoming tide. In the middle distance, there’s a good number of Curlews probing the mud – they are so evident in this estuary that I have to remind myself they’re in trouble.
A little nearer, a flock of skittish Dunlin land to feed, still showing coppery breeding plumage. Closer still, Ringed Plovers bustle along the edge of the rising water, and a mixed flock of gulls hunker down among clumps of spiky Glasswort. I keep an eye out for the Black-winged Stilt which has been seen in the area, but it’s not here today.
“Looking for anything in particular?” a voice asks in a rich Devon accent. John has walked here from Barnstaple, and was hoping to see an Osprey. One has been spotted recently perching on a pole near the mouth of the nearby River Caen. There was no sign of it this morning, but he did watch a Marsh Harrier hunting over the reedbed. “I’ve seen Barn Owls over there too”, he says, gesturing inland from the reserve towards the fields. After sharing his most memorable birding moments around the estuary this year – finding a Wheatear nest, a Glossy Ibis and Spoonbills – he tells me shyly that this is the most talking he’s done for several weeks, before continuing on his route along the bank.
I spend the remaining time until high tide scanning the gulls, hoping to spot something more unusual. It’s surprisingly meditative, if ultimately unsuccessful – I just don’t have the necessary identification confidence. Yet. Could this be the start of a holiday romance?
Without a doubt, the most captivating performers on this holiday have been the gulls. Back in my cottage hide, I’ve been fascinated by adult Herring Gulls methodically pulling aside the Bladderwrack seaweed. Pouncing on crabs they find underneath, they dismember them briskly. The juvenile gulls seem interested, but not inclined to actually join in. Every so often, one of the adults, apparently enraged by the seaweed, starts a rather pointless attempt to yank a clump off the rocks. The expression ‘displacement activity’ comes to mind, from some distant animal behaviour course I studied. I also notice something else I’ve not seen before on the shingle bank across the estuary. Black-headed Gulls are hopping up into the sea breeze and dropping something,
I came across Zach’s photographs on social media and he seems to really know his gulls. I ask what he’d suggest for improving my identification skills. “I’d start with learning the diagnostic features of adult gulls”, he says, “and particularly concentrate on the overall size and shape, colour of the back or mantle, head and bill shape and colour and leg colour of common and less common species. Once you’ve got the adults sorted then treat the key features of each immature stage almost as if they were separate species. A book like the Collins Bird Guide will really help with this”.
Zach’s local patch is Beddington Farmlands in southwest London, which I’ve also started visiting recently. “When you’re faced with a big mixed flock of gulls like you’ll see at Beddington in winter, scan the flock for anything abnormal and look at the size - is it closer to the size of a Herring or Black- headed Gull, for example. It’s worth taking photos if you can of both gulls resting and in flight too. Even if the pictures aren’t great quality, they can still be useful for narrowing down the identification to one or two species”.
Zach tells me that I should listen carefully too. “Once you’re very familiar with the calls of Blackheadeds and Herrings for example, you’ll notice more unusual calls in a mixed flock, like Mediterranean Gulls, for example, which I think sound quite distinctly different and you won’t forget them.”
I ask Zach what it is about gulls for him. “It was the challenge of trying to identify them which started me off, and it’s very satisfying when you get the identifications right”, he says. “My favourite is the Caspian Gull which has a really nice plumage and a contrasting pale head. There’s been one here all summer at Beddington.” perhaps mussels, from the height of around five or six metres onto the stones. Yes, yes, I know, it’s time to get a scope!
Gulls produce a mixed response from birders and non-birders alike. Dr Katherine Herborn, from the University of Plymouth, first became interested in gulls when she was studying Eider ducks in Iceland. “I particularly enjoyed watching the Glaucous Gulls, there”, she tells me, “There was something surprisingly gentle about how the pairs communicated with each other.” Katherine’s currently working on Gull’s Eye, a joint Plymouth and Glasgow citizen science project. This is primarily testing gull behaviour in response to risk, including aspects of human behaviour, to contribute to our understanding of population changes.
“While we were piloting recording tools for Gull’s Eye, I noticed, anecdotally, that non-birders’ perceptions of gulls, and gull behaviour, changed when they’d spent time watching them”, Katherine says. “The next step is to test this more rigorously, and we should have some results in early 2022”. It sounds like the project is going to have some interesting things to tell us about nature watching as well as gull risk perception.
Elusive owls
Regular birdwatchers will be well aware of the variation in how different bird species judge risk from us humans. In my local patch, the Goldcrests aren’t bothered if I’m within a metre of them, while, in our garden, the Great Spotted Woodpeckers are gone if I appear at the kitchen door. Here in North Devon, we’ve just finished eating fish and chips with my cousin’s family, when I’m ushered out onto the patio, and not because I’ve behaved badly. The vine-covered wall, between one small backyard and the next, is moving, squeaking, whistling and grumbling; thick with roosting Starlings only inches from a back door. Given how close the roost is to these pricey holiday lets, the Starlings may not have judged the human risk accurately enough.
On the last evening of our week away, I’m quietly delighted when my daughter suggests we go to look for that Barn Owl she’s heard me talking about. After an early dinner, we return to Braunton and walk along the top of the sea defence bank alongside the reserve, this time focusing inland. As dusk falls, we scan each of the old farm buildings and marshy fields we pass, but see nothing.
I suggest we return to the car, as I don’t want to exhaust their interest – but hang back for just a little while to enjoy the sounds of the estuary, the calling Curlews and the ghostly shapes of a Mute Swan family settling in for the night.
“Never mind, Mum”, my daughter says when I finally give in and get back to the car, “it was still great!” And she’s absolutely right, it would have been nice, but we honestly didn’t need an owl as well on this holiday.