Western Morning News (Saturday)
Celebrating a conservation success – with bunting
CHARLIE ELDER goes in search of a scarce species that the West can be proud to call its own
The last time I set out to see one of the Westcountry’s most iconic birds – a star of the conservation cause that has bounced back from the brink of extinction – it was a doddle.
More than a decade ago I pulled up in a car park at Prawle Point on the south Devon coast in search of a sparrow-sized bird with an obscure-sounding name.
The cirl bunting (pronounced ‘sirl’) is a close relative of the yellowhammer and looks quite similar, but with a striking black chin and eye stripe that sets the males apart.
The two species also sound alike. The yellowhammer famously sings ‘ a little bit of bread and no cheeeese’, while the rattling song of the cirl bunting lacks the wheezing ‘ cheeeese’ note at the end.
What really separates these farmland cousins is that while the yellowhammer is widespread and fairly common, the cirl bunting is anything but. It is a nationally rare bird confined to the South West and was at one stage staring over the precipice at extinction.
Britain lies at the northern limit of the cirl bunting’s European range and in the 1800s these warmth-loving birds, whose name derives from the Italian for ‘chirp’, colonised Devon and began to gradually spread across southern England. They are birds of traditional farmland, nesting in hedgerows and feeding on seeds through the winter and raising their young on invertebrates, such as grasshoppers, in spring.
Then in the middle of the 20th century their population started to nosedive until only a few dozen pairs remained in coastal scrub in the South West. The decline has been put down to changes in agricultural practices, particularly the switch to autumn-sown cereals and the use of herbicides and pesticides, which deprive the birds of winter stubbles, weed seeds and insect food. By 1989 cirl buntings hit a low of 118 pairs and their range was hugely diminished. At one time distributed across 39 counties they had plummeted to just one county: Devon.
The Cirl Bunting Recovery Project was launched in 1991 in a desperate attempt to stem their losses, and with the help of farmers has become one of the most successful conservation efforts of its kind. A combination of agri-environment initiatives, ensuring a more plentiful supply of wild seeds and invertebrates, along with schemes to spread the population to new sites has seen their numbers rise above 1,000 pairs.
Today cirl buntings can be found in hedgerow-lined fields along the south Devon coast and in south Cornwall. Prawle Point is one of the prime spots and was where I saw them for the first time.
After parking and walking down through flower-filled fields to join the South West Coast Path on a sunny day in late August back then, I consulted notes I had gleaned from books and online which directed me to turn through a gate towards the headland of Prawle Point and check the dense hedges immediately on the right.
Finding myself at the correct spot I looked up from my instructions and there in a bush opposite me was a cirl bunting. Easy as that.
It may be one of Britain’s scarcest breeding birds and included on the red list of UK species of greatest conservation concern, but in the right place on the right day it couldn’t have been more obliging.
Within five minutes I had clocked several just a short stroll from the car park. I could have left my engine running.
Well, that was then. When I decided to pay a return visit on a sunny, but breezy, day this September I found the cirls were being a bit more, well, surly.
I parked in East Prawle e and from the descending road followed lowed a public footpath that cut across the edge of farmland towards ds the coast. The field was filled d with what looked like kale, which hich obviously provided a rich h source of seeds as there were flocks of goldfinches es and linnets busily tucking in.
The landscape here is impressive. Waves that crash along the rocky shoreline are mirrored inland by the undulating terrain which appears to break around the bases of towering rocks in turbulent tangles of gorse se and blackthorn, bramble e and bracken.
I revisited the hedgerows ows on the rising path to the headland adland where I had got lucky all l those years ago, pausing and checking for cirl buntings as I went, nt, but
A cirl bunting spotted dozing in the sun in a hedgerow at Prawle without luck, then turned and followed the coast c path east to Lannacombe Bay, spotting oystercatch oystercatchers and little egrets feeding at low tide and rock pipits busily b searching the stran strandline for insects. R Rotund little sto stonechats perching o on the trackside gorse w were particularly confident and obviously at ease with passersby. Just as well, as there was a steady stream of w walkers on the m morning I visited, w which can pose a bit of a headache when tryi trying to observe social dista distancing on a narrow path. I It involves much the same tac tactics as negotiating the narrow lanes around here in a vehicle: b be prepared to pull over to allow p people to safely pass – or even reve reverse!
A sign points the way to the South West Coast Path
There was plenty of wildlife about, including wall butterflies, but it seemed that after two hours of watching and wandering the resident cirl buntings had given me the slip.
I retraced my steps along the shortcut that fringed the kale field back towards the road, and was ready to admit defeat. And then, part way up the track I heard the brief sound of a singing cirl bunting. Just one rattling sequence of repeated notes. Nothing particularly musical, but hugely uplifting – among the rarest sounds in the British countryside.
It didn’t come from the expanse of kale, where the linnets and goldfinches were still chattering away, but from the boundary hedge.
A moment later I spotted a small bird perched amid the dense and thorny foliage, sheltered from the breeze and basking in the sun. Its plumage was plumped up and its eyes half-closed, like a day-tripper snoozing behind a windbreak.
This wasn’t a male cirl bunting, but a female, or perhaps juvenile, which has much less distinctive markings. The singing male must have been nearby, but I was happy enough to spot just one.
Eventually it hopped away out of sight into the hedge and I left them to it, delighted to have once again seen this real Westcountry speciality.
Cirl Bunting Recovery Project manager Cath Jeffs, who has led the scheme since 1996, says she has forged a close bond with the species. “I feel an almost parental affection for these exotic-looking farmland birds, with their bold black and yellow face stripes,” she said. “I’ve got to know their needs really well. We all have – the rest of the RSPB’s Cirl Bunting Project team and I. We had to become experts at understanding what makes an ideal home for these charming farmland birds, because we came really close to losing them in the UK forever.”
A wall butterfly basks in the autumn sunshine
A handsome stonechat beside the footpath
The knowledge that this species has been helped back from the brink makes every sighting a small cause for celebration. I had to work much harder to spot one this time around, but it was well worth it and meant I encountered plenty of fascinating flora and fauna in addition.
And the cirl bunting certainly provides the perfect excuse to visit some of our most stunning coastal areas.
So if you an keen to spot one, then according to the RSPB the best places beside Prawle Point are the dedicated RSPB reserve at Labrador Bay, which boasts dozens on the site, as well as Wembury, Broadsands, Stoke Point along with Porthscatho and St Just on Cornwall’s Roseland Peninsula. They seldom wander far and given they are a protected species one should always keep one’s distance to avoid disturbing them unnecessarily.
Happy bunting hunting.