Out fishing today l heard the unmistakeable call of a curlew, over the riverside pasture l counted eleven flying in a group. Never seen more than two or three together and usually a bit nearer spring, is this normal for them? Also spied the resident great egret who’s been around for the last year.
B
Out fishing today l heard the unmistakeable call of a curlew, over the riverside pasture l counted eleven flying in a group. Never seen more than two or three together and usually a bit nearer spring, is this normal for them? Also spied the resident great egret who's been around for the last year.
B
I know for many people the sound of the skylark evokes wonderful memories of summers gone and the Cuckoo completes the start of summer, but no sound cuts through to my core and stirs the memory pot quite like a curlew.
It is so mournful.
The way it starts to gently accelerate in some vain hope and then just slows down to a mournful last warble, yet when it does this song the air feels full of it almost to bursting !
I'm blessed down here being surrounded with great areas for nightingales and can spend summer evenings entranced, but I'd trade them all for a curlew .
It means home, the tide out and the exposed sand flats and back over the dunes, and the moors and mountains behind and makes me really miss the North of England
Lucky you to see the great Egret, that must have been quite stunning
We've some interesting guests starting to appear in the uk that make a memorable rare days when you cross paths.
I've got meetings with a pair of very large cranes and spotting a great bustard making a welcome return etched in my memory bank from the past few years. Can't remember much else of those particular days, apart from those rare sightings and where exactly I was at the time and how I felt.
However if those memories do fade I know the song of the curlew never will.
thanks for reminding me.
All best
Pom
I remember years ago sitting in the back garden of terraced house in a Stoke-on-Trent town where a friend of mine lived. We both heard the unmistakable call of a curlew, we looked at each other in disbelief owing to the location, then scanned the rooftop skyline and spotted the origin of the call.
It was a starling, sitting on a TV aerial, producing a perfectly mimicked curlew call! We surmised that it must have been up on the moorland in curlew country and had decided that sounding like a curlew was a good thing to do.
I'm very lucky in that we have anything up to 50 curlews spend the summer on the moors behind our fishery.I love the sound.and when they get into breeding mode the way the call changes.
I never knew they grouped up like I saw today Jim, although I understand there is a migrant population as well as the indigenous birds. Do they behave differently?
B
The Curlew is for me the first sign of spring, they usually arrive around 19th Feb and then over the next few weeks more arrive. They nest in the fields at the side of my cottage, loads of open space for the nests. The farmer who owns the land even walks the fields with his dog checking for nests before grass cutting. Its great watching them fly over my property, and that sound well incredible.
Walking down a country lane near the house today saw these. Will not be long before Curlews arrive , Spring may just be around the corner. Hope no harsh weather surprises
15 magpies in a tree outside the back door just 10 minutes ago. I've been looking for a rhyme to 15.
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