This Birding Life (31 page)

Skuas are the hawks of the sea: the scourge of weaker seabirds such as terns and auks. They prowl around a seabird colony until they spot a bird which has just caught a fish. Then they pounce, swooping down on the unsuspecting victim and harassing it until it drops or regurgitates its catch.

Two species of skua breed in Britain: the Great Skua or Bonxie, and the smaller and more falcon-like Arctic Skua. Both nest on the moors of Scotland and the Atlantic islands. But two other species of skua also visit our shores from time to time. The bulky Pomarine and the slender, tern-like Long-tailed Skua are rare passage migrants, usually seen only briefly as they pass by our coasts in spring or autumn. Both breed in the high Arctic, sharing their nesting grounds with polar foxes and snow-white hares.

As David Davenport looked west from Aird an Runair that windy spring day, he must have been amazed at what he saw. Tight flocks of Pomarine Skuas flew over the waves in close formation, like a squadron of fighter planes. These birds, with their extraordinary twisted tail-feathers, were joined from time to time by delicate Long-tailed Skuas, many sporting the magnificent elongated tail plumes worn by breeding adults.

What brought these skuas so close to land were the weather conditions that day. A deep low pressure area, moving north past the islands, brought strong westerly winds, veering north-westerly. These had blown the skuas close inshore – so close that some passed directly over the beach.

Given suitable weather conditions, the Hebridean skua passage has been noted most years since. The record was set in mid-May 1991, when 622 Pomarines and an astonishing 1346 Long-tails flew north in a fortnight, shattering the previous record of 388 birds in May 1983. The greatest spectacle was on 19 May, when lucky observers logged 540 Long-tails and over 100 Pomarines.

But skua-watchers already packing their bags for the Hebrides may be disappointed. When the winds fail to blow from the right direction, a whole season can pass with hardly any sightings.

A warm evening, somewhere in the west of England. Just a few yards from a forest path, a man carrying a rope, a ladder and a rucksack is preparing to climb an oak tree. No, he's not up to mischief, though at first sight you might well be suspicious. His mission is to find, catch and ring the young of Britain's most enigmatic bird of prey: the Goshawk.

Few birdwatchers have ever seen a wild Goshawk in this country, even though more than 200 pairs now breed here. For such a huge bird, the Goshawk is remarkably elusive. One reason is its secretive habits: it lives deep in our largest forests, rarely venturing beyond the confines of the trees. When it does, its huge size and powerful flight action distinguish it from its smaller relative, the Sparrowhawk.

Another reason is that the Goshawk is itself a hunted creature – by
humans. Unscrupulous egg-collectors and falconers frequently raid nests, taking both eggs and young for profit. Hence the need for secrecy during my visit to one of the Goshawk's most successful strongholds, in the heart of a lowland forest.

The ringer was barely halfway up the tree when we glimpsed the largest chick raising her head above the rim of the nest. After the three young birds were brought down, they were duly ringed and weighed, while I heard the story of the species' colonisation of Britain.

Goshawks nested here until the mid-nineteenth century, when they were driven to extinction by a combination of deforestation, the gamekeeper's trap and the Victorian bird-collector's gun. Then, in the late 1960s, they were discovered breeding in several parts of the country. Given that many of these early colonisers wore falconers' jesses, it seems certain that most, if not all, were escaped birds.

In this particular forest, the first bird was seen by a teacher leading a school party in 1978. He returned the following year to find a nesting pair, from which today's healthy population has grown. Since then he and a dedicated group of watchers have monitored the fate of the birds, spending their spare time tracking down new nests each spring.

Goshawks prey mostly on crows, jays and pigeons, so they are not short of food. But their catholic diet isn't the only reason for their success. At a second nest, we found telltale feathers, barred brown and white – revealing that the hen bird was in her first season, unusual among birds of prey.

Well able to survive the vagaries of the British weather, and with large areas of potential habitat not yet colonised, there seems little reason why the Goshawk should not become fully established throughout Britain. Provided, of course, that secrecy is maintained. In other parts of the country, they've been prevented from establishing themselves by constant persecution. Thanks to the efforts of the people with me, this particular population has avoided that fate.

Deep in the forest, as the sun went down, the ringer placed the young Goshawks in his rucksack. After a swift ascent, they were safely
back in the nest. Meanwhile the female flew overhead, occasionally visible through the forest canopy as she called in apprehension. But this time at least, her fears were groundless, and her haunting, repetitive call only a false alarm.

Visit a wood on a dull, grey winter's afternoon, and you could be forgiven for thinking no birds live there at all. There is no song, no movement, no sign of life. It's tempting to give it up as a bad job and to return home to the comforts of central heating and supper.

But wait. Was that a bird calling – at a pitch almost too high for the human ear? Perhaps it was just the wind … No – there it goes again: a thin, sibilant whistle, so quiet you have to turn your head this way and that to try to work out where it's coming from. Then, just as you think you must be mistaken, you hear another sound. Then another, and another – a whole chorus of off-key squeaks. After perhaps an hour of searching you've discovered the only birds in the whole wood – a roving flock of tits.

Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that they've discovered you. Keep still, don't make any sudden movements or noise, and they may pause for a moment in the bare branches above your head. Even then, they can be surprisingly difficult to see. The key is to fix your sights on any movement, carefully lift your binoculars to your eyes and focus. You may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a tiny bird, the owner of that high-pitched squeak, before it springs off to another branch and out of sight.

In winter, small birds need to eat about one quarter of their body weight every day – simply to survive. Their strategy depends on hunting in flocks for the few remaining grubs and insects lurking among the
twigs and branches. A flock may consist of anything between ten and a hundred birds – mostly Blue Tits, with their striking blue-and-yellow plumage. These will usually be accompanied by Great Tits – larger, white-cheeked, black-capped and with a yellow breast.

Just as you're beginning to wonder whether anything more unusual is tagging along, a smaller bird flits across your field of view. More rounded, almost ball-like, and with a brown and black plumage, Coal Tits have left the dark coniferous forests where they breed to join their cousins in this broad-leaved woodland.

Tit flocks often attract one or two fellow-travellers: perhaps a Nuthatch or the small, brown, mouse-like Treecreeper. Our smallest bird, the Goldcrest, gives its presence away by its thin, high-pitched call as it flits from tree to tree. If you're really lucky (it's happened to me just once in many years of birding), you may even see a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, hardly bigger than a sparrow, tagging along behind the flock.

Suddenly, you hear a new, three-note call, repeated by a chorus of birds. You glimpse what looks like a ball of fluff with a tail, shooting across the sky between the trees, followed in quick succession by two or three more. These are Long-tailed Tits, immortalised by the nineteenth-century poet John Clare using a local name from his native Northamptonshire:

And coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
And hang on little twigs – and start again …

Still accompanied by an orchestra of calls, a flurry of activity fills the trees. Then, as quickly and suddenly as it appeared, the flock has gone – to some more productive area of the wood. By March, when the frozen ground is thawing, and the buds begin to sprout on the trees, perhaps one in five of these tiny birds will have survived. The rest lie in the leaf-litter, forever silent.