WHAT is the next best thing to a day spent on Spurn, the famous birding hotspot on the Yorkshire Coast?
Well, here’s one contender - attending an illustrated presentation on the birds of the
peninsula by Rob Adams, current chairman of the 70-year-old observatory.
Rob, who hails from Doncaster, certainly delighted an audience of 50-plus at this
month’s meeting of Grimsby RSPB.
His wide-ranging presentation variously touched on the topography of Spurn, how
it has developed since being set up in 1946 by Ralph Chislett with three others and the astonishing checklist of birds, many
of them rarities, that have been recorded over its illustrious history.
In recent times, one of these was a great snipe which paid for its
extraordinary tameness by being caught and killed by a cat.
Another was a White’s thrush which, alas, also died, but apparently of natural
causes. The bird’s memory lives on because it was later stuffed, mounted in a
glass case and put on display where it is inevitably a talking point among
visitors to the observatory.
A few years ago, the observatory premises were upgraded - there is now modern,
dormitory-style accommodation for up to 13 at £16 per bed per night.
Spurn is one of a network of UK coastal observatories and the first to have been
established on the mainland.
Not far to the north are those at Filey and Flamborough, both also in Yorkshire, while,
to the south, is Gibraltar Point near Skegness in Lincolnshire.
At migration times, the weather conditions most favourable for ‘falls’ of birds
are easterly winds plus a combination of low pressure over the UK and high
pressure over Eastern Europe and Siberia.
The first warden at Spurn was Peter Mountford followed, for many years, by the
redoubtable Barry Spence, now in his 80s
and no longer in the most robust of health.
Rob paid tribute to many both of the individuals, such as the late John Cudworth (observatory
chairman for 40 years), and of the groups
who have contributed to the proud legacy of Spurn over seven decades.
Their number also includes
the ladies who take responsibility for the excellent catering which is a
feature of the annual migration festival in September.
He was particularly warm in his thoughts on two Spurn stalwarts who, very sadly,
are no longer with us - Martin Garner and Andy Roadhouse.
It was Andy who spent part of the last seven years of his life compiling the exhaustive
and authoritative The Birds of Spurn which happily, he finally saw through to publication nine months before he
died.
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| An impressive achievement - Andy Roadhouse's book |
Spurn publishes a handsomely-illustrated annual report which is reckoned to be
one of the best of its kind.
Even before the observatory was established, it was attracting birdwatchers at
least as far back as the1880s.
Pallas sandgrouse was one of the early stars to be followed by a houbara
bustard on a field at nearby Easington.
The latter bird was watched
with admiration by the celebrated Grimsby ornithologist and migration expert John Cordeaux and
his friend, W. Eagle Clarke.
How did they celebrate their magnificent find?.
Cordeaux requested the farmer to shoot the bird which he duly did.
It was subsequently served on
the dinner plate to the visiting duo who noted that the dark meat was tender
and tasted of "wild goose with a savour of grass".
For all the wondrousness of its birdlife, some of the ornithological sights at
Spurn are not for the squeamish - for instance that of exhausted little auks, birds about the size of
starlings, sometimes being blown in off the North Sea where they risk being
swallowed - in one mouthful. - by predatory
great black backed gulls.
Great grey shrikes, occasional winter visitors, follow flocks of goldcrests
where they sometimes decapitate them and impale them on thorns before returning
later to devour them.
Huge falls of goldcrests, a species that weighs less than a 10p bit, are
sometimes a feature in autumn. Occasionally they are so exhausted after flying
non-stop for 16 or so hours from Scandinavia that they will even land on human observers.
“They perch on your
binoculars or tread on your feet,”said Rob.
Asked by an audience member if he thought exhausted goldcrests were
particularly vulnerable to collision risk from the array of wind turbines
located off Spurn, Rob replied: “It’s hard to say.
“I think it is broad-winged
species that are more likely to be at risk, but the hope is that most migrating
passerines fly above the height of the turbines.”
Earlier in autumn, pied flycatchers also sometimes arrive in spectacular
numbers, up to 400 a day, with a particularly favourable vantage point being the bushes at the edge of the Crown and Anchor pub (recently under new management and long a popular
watering hole for birders, not least because of it’s proximity to the observatory
building).
The rigour of the note-taking
(and sketch-making) has always been an important element of the activities of
all connected with the observatory.
This was particularly
important in the early days when identification manuals were less plentiful
than today and when the internet was uninvented.
Sometimes, as in the case of
a stilt sandpiper, it took 10 days to establish the identity of an unfamiliar
bird.
In the past, the presence of a rarity could be a cause of contention.
Some years ago, the presence
of a Tengmalm’s owl was suppressed - much to the anger of those birders who
found out about it too late.
More recently, a Siberian
accentor turned up at nearby Easington, so a system was set up to allow the
bird to be watched a few at a time. In the end, some 3,000 birders went away
happy.
In line with increasingly
regular practice, the observatory also took the opportunity to make a
collection, with the funds being used to support local charities.
Another star species noted by Rob
was a Marmora's warbler, which had drifted over from Corsica or Sicily, along
with a host of lesser (but still fabulous rarities) such as black lark, crane,
ivory gull, yellow-billed cuckoo, bluethroat, Blyth’s reed warbler, Pallas’
grasshopper warbler, collared flycatcher, broad-billed sandpiper, masked shrike, Isabelline wheatear, pacific swift, Siberian stonechat, golden oriole and bee-eater.
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| Bluethroat - one or two turn up most years, usually in autumn |
A regular birder at Spurn is
John Grist who has a knack for spotting and identifying unusual waders that
turn up on the estuary mudflats - one notable being a sharp-tailed sandpiper.
Although it tends to be the
ultra-rarities that sets the adrenaline flowing, Rob takes almost as much (if
not equal) delight in the spectacle of less scarce species.
These include - for instance,
the “phenomenal” spring movement of up to 20,000 swifts a day, an overwintering
black redstart, the first ring ouzel or wheatear of spring or a firecrest
flitting about in a bush and “everyone’s favourite”, the wryneck.
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| Black redstart - regular early spring visitor and occasional overwinterer |
He described seeing a flock
of bramblings emerging out of a sea fret as “a sight to behold”, and, despite the unspectacular plumage coloration, he was also complimentary about barred warblers.
“For a large warbler, it’s
remarkably secretive,” he commented. “But when you see one, it’s definitely a
sight to remember.”
Rob stressed that the
observatory is committed to being as professional as possible in its approach -
all the more so since establishing a business plan in 2013.
This led to the appointment
of a high-profile patron, the BBC One Show broadcaster Mike Dilger, who has proved an
excellent ambassador.
According to Rob, Mike once
successfully applied to be a seasonal little tern warden at Spurn, but he declined the
position after being offered a more exotic assignment elsewhere - possibly
birding for three years in Colombia.
Proposed future observatory research
projects include radar-tracking yellow-
browed warblers to find clues about where these tiny Siberian visitors
end up after their brief stay on Spurn.
Ringing has always been an
important of the work on the peninsula after birds have been trapped either by
Heligoland, by mistnet or (in the case of swifts) by flipnet.
