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A new sight for a new millennium

Owen Watkins, a Friend, recalls a winter's bird walk

I never saw a kingfisher in the 20th Century, and neither had I seen a jay since moving to Chester. Both omissions were corrected in the space of half an hour on a crisp, dry Sunday morning at the beginning of January. Malcolm Leigh was leading about a dozen of us in a walk around the Park. "See how many we can tick off for the day", he had said. My list came to 21 seen and one heard (a goldcrest) and I didn't see the shy water rail or the birds they said they saw after I had left the party to go home for lunch. On the whole, this was an excellent introduction to the bird life of Caldy Nature Park in the company of a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide.

We started in Wellfield, the 'far side' of Caldy Valley Road. Although I knew it existed I had never ventured to this part of the nature park before, and I suspect a number of others are in the same position. It is the remains of a garden which originally stretched to the Old Heath Lane. The area is an excellent site for birds, and we saw our first dozen or so species there - mainly common garden birds but also a flock of siskin silhouetted against the skyline at the top of a line of alders. It took a pair of binoculars to confirm their identity. It was not the right time of day to see the tawny owls whose nocturnal activities cannot fail to be heard by nearby residents.

We found a few more species as we walked through the wood, past Bachelors Bridge and along the brook towards the pond. Malcolm shared some interesting stories with us, and Mike O'Kell chipped in with some of his experiences. Did you know, for example, that many blackbirds migrate, and that a large number of the ones we see around Chester in the winter are visitors from Scandinavia. Most are female: being very territorial birds, the males stay behind to guard their territory.

At the pond, Pam Atkinson provided some very welcome hot drinks and Zoë, the youngest member of the group, made an excellent job of making sure we ate the biscuits which had been provided. We remarked on how few ducks there were keeping the company of our elderly swan and her mate, while there were more moorhens around than I had ever seen there at one time before (on reflection, visiting the pond with young children is not going to encourage these creatures to show themselves).

As we were leaving the pond there were shouts of delight from a couple of people in the group and I turned to catch sight of a dart of colour disappearing into the distance. My first kingfisher! Even though I had not had a very clear view, it could not have been anything else. Any doubts I may have had were dispelled within a hundred yards when a second bird, equally fast, equally colourful, equally darting, came towards us heading in the same direction. Boy, was I pleased.
The jay and the water rail followed between there and the bottom bridge. The water rail is a very shy bird, and in my eyes rather a comical looking one, so I was surprised that it would chose to live in a comparatively well visited spot. We also looked keenly for a sighting of a water vole on the banks of the brook, but not one was willing to oblige us. One real surprise was a small tortoiseshell butterfly doing its stuff in the January sunshine.

Having seen such variety with my own eyes, I could believe just about any bird could visit the park. My only question is whether the rest of the group really did see a buzzard and sparrow hawk after I left, or were they winding me up?

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