May is a lovely month to appreciate the bird life at CWF. Not so much what you see – the leaves on the trees make that challenging – but what you hear. And it is in the lower fields, the part of the reserve that most people neglect, that the bird song is best. On Sunday 14 members joined Trustees David, Paul and Andy at the Childwall Lane entrance at 8am for the Members Only Bird Walk. Following the newly opened paths round the lower field (thank you to the Diggers!), we were treated to all 4 of our spring visiting warblers in song; our regulars – chiffchaff, blackcap and whitethroat – and, in a first for many years, willow warbler too. We then moved up to the middle and top fields. Here we were hoping to see or hear a lesser whitethroat which was reported here by a local birder just last week. This is a first sighting at CWF but alas the bird was having a Sunday morning lie in.
The advantage of a group visit is that many pairs of eyes mean you see more; during the walk it was a group of 4 cormorants flying over and a heron circling. In total the group recorded 26 species in two hours. We finished up in the beechwood in a clearing looking at 2 treecreepers, and a nuthatch and blue tit busily feeding their young in nests high in a sweet chestnut tree. Our final call was to another clearing where a tawny owl has been seen but this one too proved elusive.
Many of us use the app Merlin to identify bird song and recently Merlin has reported ‘hearing’ common redstart. Surely not we thought – the bird is misnamed, it’s not common at all. But during the walk one of the members reported recently seeing a redstart at CWF, and close up too. Another first this month at CWF. It’s turning out to be a good year.
Andrew Scott