A Wild Goose Chase (Or Is It?)

Wind breezy, sun shining. The perfect backdrop for a good day’s birding at Emsworthy Mire DWT Reserve. Kicking off with a tremendous tree pipit, these birds are well known for their parachuting display. As it climbed higher and higher, it then opened its wings and ‘parachuted’ down, only beginning to flap when inches above the heather and gorse. This was a wonder of nature, and a first for me (not the bird, the display. I’ve seen the bird before but not the display).

Down near the entrance gate, a wonderful wren hopped onto the granite wall and began to sing it’s amazingly loud song to anyone who could hear it. It continued as we walked further into the depths of the valley. It was about 20 or 25 metres from the mire when I started saying about how our chances of seeing a cuckoo didn’t look too good, as in the last 2 years, we’d already heard them way before here. Me and my big mouth. Just as I finished, an unexpected cuckoo started calling from somewhere near the old barn and I was instantly proved wrong!

From then on, it was a wild cuckoo stalking urge that kept us going, seeing plenty of other birds along the way. More tree pipits (and I mean a lot more!), a male and female stonechat, a redstart (more about that in a minute), and a buzzard.

Keeping an eye on the crows as we went (they often chase and divebomb cuckoos), we stopped at a lump of granite large enough to sit on and stared out at the bluebell carpet. Now, about that redstart, I didn’t actually see it. My dad was with me and spotted it flying briefly, but unfortunately, I didn’t catch it.

Finally, just as we were heading back to the car, we found it. A cuckoo was perched on a bare branch, jutting from the edge of a thorny tree. This was the best view I’d ever had of one of them. You could make out all the plumage details, including the yellow eye ring. It was a great experience, but also at the same time saddening. This bird is in steep decline in the UK and today it’s just all too rare to hear one. This might just have been the last time I’d ever see one. Luckily, conservation work is intervening and hopefully, these organisations will stabilize the trend.