Poppyland Nature: HOUSE CROW

Saturday, 18 September 2010

HOUSE CROW

Today saw me taking a day trip over to Co.Cork for the House Crow that had been recently discovered at Cobh. Joining up with a crew from Essex, we took the early morning ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare, arriving at c6.15am and were soon heading across southern Ireland. Just over a couple of hours later we arrived in Cobh and had it safely on the list from the car window before we had even parked!
A native of India, it was the second Irish record following one in the '70's, and like its predecessor, this one undoubtedly arrived via a ship, possibly from the small dutch population which had built up from other ship assisted arrivals.

Over the next couple of hours we watched it commute from the houses around the square by the lusitania monument over to the harbour where it would scavenge for food. It was very vocal at times especially when perched atop its favourite drainpipe. The gathering of birders caused great interest with locals and other tourists alike most of whom probably thought we were mad travelling all that way for a crow!

Also around the area was a nice supporting cast of birds including Hooded Crows, an Iceland Gull and Rock Pipit.

With the afternoon free to do some birding we headed back east checking out a couple of estuaries on the way which produced an assortment of waders. A fortuitous wrong turn in our quest to find Tacumshin Lake resulted in us ending up at the south-west corner of Lady's Island Lake where I spotted a Glossy Ibis feeding amongst a flock of 14 Little Egrets. It soon flew off west when I managed to grab a couple of flight shots.

We eventually found Tacumshin where the Wilsons Phalarope was located feeding on the far side of the lake and as dusk approached, I picked up two separate Glossy Ibis flying in from the east presumably heading off to their roost site. The site provides excellent habitat and its no wonder that its attracted the long list of vagrants that it has, but unfortunately time caught up with us and we had to leave for the ferry before some of the other species present could be located, but nonetheless it had been an excellent day.

My Patch

My patch covers roughly a 10 mile stretch along the north Norfolk coast, from Beeston in the west along to Trimingham in the east, plus a small area inland including Felbrigg Park, Roughton and Northrepps, although the vast majority of my time is spent concentrating on the area from West Runton along to Overstrand.
The main habitats of the area are the coastal bushes and scrub which attract migrants in spring and autumn, a few clifftop woods and fields, the park & lake at Felbrigg, rocky and sandy beaches, and the cliffs and sea which both present great potential for observing coastal passage.

My Photos

The bird photos on here are all digiscoped using a Panasonic Lumix TZ3 compact camera and a Kowa TSN 824 scope. I use a 50x wide angle lens on the scope with no zoom on the camera which seems to go against all the 'expert' advice you read on forums etc, but it works for me and I'm pleased with the results. Additionally I also just hold the camera in place by hand rather than use any adapters to fix it in place, and apart from altering exposure levels, I just go with the automatic levels on the camera so it is really just a case of point and shoot.
The Butterfly and Dragonfly pictures are taken with the camera alone using its macro setting and again mostly using no zoom, which naturally requires a lot of careful stalking of the subject to get close enough to get the quality of picture that I desire.

Poppyland

In 1883 the London based playwright, poet and theatre critic, Clement Scott, visited Cromer as a travel writer for the Daily Telegraph taking advantage of the newly opened railway to the town. On arrival he walked east along the coast to seek accommodation and fell in love with the idyllic villages of Overstrand and Sidestrand and the solitude they presented away from the nearby town. With fields of poppies carpeting the clifftops, he christened the area 'Poppyland' and subsequently wrote a series of articles about his visit in the Telegraph. These were later published as the Poppyland Papers, and his writings made the area probably the best known holiday destination in the country with many victorians visiting the area to enjoy its delights, and the most wealthy of them having houses built in the area, with Overstrand soon becoming known as 'The village of millionaires'. The term Poppyland has stuck ever since, and although it originally just referred to the Overstrand and Sidestrand area, the extension of the railway line to Sheringham and Mundesley, known as the Poppy Line, led to that whole stretch of coast becoming known as Poppyland.

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Saturday, 18 September 2010

HOUSE CROW