Weedon’s World
Hot and bothered, Mike checks out insects and juvenile Peregrines
HAVING BEEN LARGELY IGNORED BY THEIR PARENTS... THE JUVENILES HAD TO TRY TO HUNT
Many non-birders (and indeed many birders) fall into the easy trap of thinking that a nice sunny day means a good day for birdwatching. Pleasant though sunshine and clear skies may be, they are often the enemy of the birder. If any birds choose to be on the move on such clear days, they fly through at height, invisibly. And even if they drop down on your patch for a quick wash and brush up, the heat haze can turn everything into an unidentifiable blur.
This is one reason that we birders turn our attention to nice, manageable bird substitutes, like butterflies and dragonflies, during the pleasant sunny days of July. Indeed, I even managed a Peterborough Bird Club (PBC) area tick this month with a lovely large dragonfly called either the Norfolk Hawker or the Green-eyed Hawker (or Aeshna isoceles), depending on your preference; a species expanding its range from Norfolk, through Cambridgeshire and into south Lincolnshire.
They are brown, with ‘clear’ wings (unlike Brown Hawkers, which have brown venation) and bright green eyes. I saw at least four of them at Baston Fen LWT, south Lincolnshire, where they appear to be colonising, and got some nice photos. But you will have to look on my blog or my Responsible Birding Diary on the
BW website, to see these piccies.
Have a look there, as well, if you want to see my photos of another insect which has colonised an increasing number of sites around Peterborough in the last few years: the magnificent and huge Purple Emperor butterfly. I found a lovely male indulging in the rather unsavoury feeding habit this species goes in for (sucking the salts, moisture and nutrients from a dog poo) on a gravel track at Castor Hanglands NNR (just west of Peterborough itself).
And while we are talking about photos on my blog/ diary, while you are visiting, check out the pictures I took of the extremely rare Elegant Tern I went to see in the north-west corner of Anglesey (at Cemlyn Lagoon) in mid-July. Or, if you like, turn to page 99 of this issue, where I snuck my favourite shot of the tern onto the ‘rarity’ pages of UKBS. I happen to arrogantly think this is one of the best photographs of this species taken in the UK (that is why I put it on the page), but I am naturally biased…
Yes, photography has taken over a little from proper birding during the last month. I didn’t manage to add any birds at all to my local #My200BirdYear list in July, but I did get a few PBC area ‘find’ year ticks with a Black-necked Grebe and a Mediterranean Gull or two.
So, instead I tried to take some nice snaps of local birds (and largely failed). One photo-opportunity I had to snap up (pardon me), came courtesy of some ‘tip-off pictures’ appearing on social media. Judging by the images and videos appearing on Facebook and Twitter, a pair of Peregrines which had nested in nearby Stamford had produced some extremely obliging
(as photographic models) youngsters.
So, naturally, last week, while our son Eddie was visiting us here, I took him over to Stamford to see if we could locate these falcons. It was easy. The two youngsters, though just about full-sized, spent a significant amount of time and energy loudly pleading with their parents to be fed. The parents, meantime, spent most of their time perched near the weathercock on the top of the spire of All Saints (beneath which, local rector Father Neil Shaw told us, they had nested).
So, having been largely ignored by their parents, occasionally, the juveniles had to try to hunt for themselves. This proved to be one of the great highlights, as a high-speed chase ensued between one young Peregrine and a snowy white Feral Pigeon. Hunter and hunted circled round the spire and over the roof tops, with the falcon screaming at the pigeon to give itself up! I always moan about reconstructions of dinosaurs (think Jurassic Park) roaring at their prey; pointing out that predators in real life are silent in the chase. That young Peregrine clearly hadn’t read the rule book. He will learn!
The other great highlight was being able to sneak up on one juvenile Peregrines (resting and calling) on a stone chimney above a shop, perhaps 100m from its natal church. Of course, photographs were taken…
Mike Weedon is a lover of all wildlife, a local bird ‘year lister’, and a keen photographer, around his home city of Peterborough, where he lives with his wife, Jo, and children, Jasmine and Eddie. You can see his photos at weedworld. blogspot.com