Thursday 1 December 2022

Thirty Years Ago - November 1992

7th November:

After a slight hitch that involved Pete’s failure to get up, we eventually arrived at Aldeburgh at 11.45. Fortunately the immature Great Spotted Cuckoo was still resent and showed well both in flight and on the deck before being pushed and harassed but two of the regular photographers.  They flushed it repeatedly and it ended up over a mile away from where we originally saw it. It resembled a juvenile but the shaggier crest and some grey flecking in the nape and mantle suggested that it may have been a second year.  This was a first for Suffolk.

Great Spotted Cuckoo

 

Butley was our late lunchtime stop and a walk afterwards produced a female Hen harrier, 46 Avocet and nine Little Grebes.

22nd November:

Mike Sullivan had found a Firecrest the day before at The Chase and so I headed over in the hope of adding it not only to my site list but to my Essex list as it was a glaring omission.  It took me 90 minutes to find it but it was well worth the effort of squelching through horrific quantities of mud and deep puddles. It was feeding in the loose company of 12 Goldcrests, various Tits, Bullfinches and a Chiffchaff.

 Firecrest 

It turned out to be a most productive morning with at least three other Chiffchaffs being seen, two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, a fine male Lesser Spot and an obliging Short-eared Owl that was being mobbed by Crows.  However there were no Long-eared Owl to be found.

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