How did I miss them? Perhaps a tree was obscuring the view and it was removed/felled over the winter or was it just observer failure! The rookery in Cherry Hinton Hall was again 10 Apparently Active Nests (AANs) but a new rookery has appeared about 75 m away in Walpole Road with 12 apparently active nests. They were obvious so how did I miss them!? I didn’t, I hadn’t; Roger (Horton) and Duncan (McKay) both confirmed that this was a new colony. All the Rookeries in our NatHistCam study area have maintained numbers or increased; this year the total count of AANs was 134 (2018 – 111; 2017 – 108).
Early Common Terns were seen at Hobson’s Park on 9th April, a pair along Riverside on 28th April (Rob Pople) and a pair noisily patrolling the northern edge of our study area at Milton Country Park on 2nd May. I do not know where the Riverside birds breed but they might be from Hobson’s Park.
Late Teal were at Eddington in the early part of the month but are easily disturbed to the ditches closer to the M11 where they may breed.
The pair of Nuthatches were again seen at Girton College (Jon Heath) but nowhere else in the City despite searches. A dead Tawny owlet, almost fledged, was found in Jesus College grounds on 1st April (Rhona Watson) and a vigorous living owlet was at Girton College on 2nd April (Duncan McKay); a Chiffchaff in Gilbert Road on a cool damp evening on 2nd May and a Willow Warbler was singing in Tenison Road on 12th April (Martin Walters). On 2nd April two Swallows were near Darwin Green and on 18th April two Swallows were over Oxford Road but numbers of hirundines have been few; the regular nesting pair under the A14 bridge near Horningsea were seen on 2nd May and birds over Milton Country Park on the same day. Bullfinches are breeding in a garden in Huntingdon Road.
Throughout most of April Blackcaps were the commonest songbirds across the City. I have never heard so many – every suitable copse, clump of trees hedge, wayside shrubs or wooded garden seemed to have a singing male. Mill Road cemetery had four singing Blackcaps, two Chiffchaffs (and two singing Greenfinches) on 16th April.
There has been an interesting sequence of inland records in Cambridgeshire of Little Gulls and Arctic Terns this April but few coastal records from Norfolk or Suffolk of these pelagic species. Numbers of Little Gulls recorded at Grafham Water peaked at 37 on April 11th and 32 Arctic Terns at RSPB Fen Drayton on 27th April. I have seen large numbers of Little Gulls following the French and Dutch coasts north in spring to their breeding grounds in Scandinavia taking advantage of the prevailing south westerly winds. This April easterly winds might have stalled their passage round the coasts so they may have taken the short cut overland to the North Sea to avoid rounding the English Channel. This might add weight to the theory that overland passage following the SW/NE (NE/SW in autumn) trajectory of our major East Anglian river valleys – Ouse, Cam, Nene – is a regular overland migration flyway.
On 16th April a well fledged sub-adult Mistle Thrush was in the next field to 50 Fieldfares in the Fen Road meadows. Two Oystercatchers flew over the Botanic Gardens on 18th April (Nets Shelford) and again on 28th April (Rob Pople) – possibly the same birds; this species, exploring potential inland nest sites over our study area, occurs most springs.
On 17th April winds changed to gentle south easterlies and many spring migrants must have arrived. Rob Pople recorded 2 Reed Warblers at the Sanctuary in Adams Road on 28th April and I heard my first Whitethroats and a Garden Warbler in our study area on 2nd and 3rd May; Lesser Whitethroats were heard by the Milton cycle bridge, in the bushes by the Sewage Works and near Cambridge North Station on 2nd May. The first Swift was over the City on 1st May.
A possible new housing development in our study area next to Darwin Green may advance beyond the Huntingdon Road/Histon Road boundary footpath. I knew this land as Green Belt but there are proposals from Barratt Homes to build houses, and possibly a new school, up to the A14; this land was ‘scoped” by archaeological surveyors early this year. It has two pairs of breeding Grey Partridge and other Red Listed Farmland species including Yellowhammer, Linnet, and Yellow Wagtail; Barn Owls hunt this farmland regularly and a pair of Kestrels nest there. In 2016 four pairs of Lapwings nested – the first time in (at least) 50 years.
bobjarman99@btinternet.com – 3rd May 2019