NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Part 13:  June-July 1976 Since my earliest visits to Beddington I had frequently met up with Ken Parsley and Mike Netherwood, who were the sole surviving members of the farm’s ringing group, which had been formed during the 1950s. Under the auspices of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the group collected data by trapping birds. This was done mainly through their capture in a fine meshed net, strung out between two secured poles. On calm days the net would be hard to see, and birds would fly into it, finding themselves cushioned in a pocket, quietly awaiting extraction by a ringer. Once in the hand, the bird would be identified, sexed and aged; a set of measurements would be taken, such as wing length and weight; and a light metal ring placed on a leg. On this ring would be embossed a unique serial number and an address to send details of the bird in case of recovery. This latter stage helped build up a clear idea of where birds moved to, how fast they could travel and th...

I have to ask the question, and not because I disbelieve that there are Pallid Swifts in our skies. It seems that for the past few years, any lone swift seen above our fair country in the late autumn has as much chance of being a Pallid as a Common. Are there Pallid Swifts in our skies much earlier in the autumn that are just not being picked up, mostly because there are plenty of Commons about? Are birders not conditioned to look for them earlier in the autumn? Does a lone, late autumn swift get grilled all the more  and so any Pallids present are not getting missed? And what about all of those late swifts from yesteryear? How many of those, that were passed off as Common, were in fact Pallid? A few years ago, on November 28th, I was walking along a street in Sutton on a mild, heavily overcast day. I happened to look up just as a swift came into view, very low. It passed directly over me and I saw it very well. I was more than aware that there was a very good chance that it could ...

This particular post has been prompted by Paul Trodd over at Plovers Blog... Midsummer at Beddington Sewage Farm back in the 1970s frequently meant trying to catch Swifts. For such a fast-flying (and generally high-flying) species, trying to catch them is not an easy task. It takes cunning, it takes guile, it takes... well, to be honest, it takes a bit of muggy or cloudy weather to bring the birds down low so that they feed only inches above the ground. Because Beddington was one big insect attractant (rank vegetation, sewage settlement) it was also a virtual cafe for insectiverous birds. If the Swifts were low, then Beddington would be hosting them in their hundreds, possibly thousands. We still had to catch them though. Running after a Swift with a giant butterfly net would have been futile, so we used to call upon the services of a mist net. If you haven't seen one, a mist net looks like a giant elongated hair-net (most between 20 - 60 feet long and up to eight feet deep). T...