Singles nights

The texts will tell you first summer non-breeding Grey Herons will attend their heronry, staying mainly to the edges, being tolerated (just) by the adults there, with only a small handful breeding (most first attempt breed at the age of two).

Some locals fail to read these texts and go awol each spring.

From about the time the adult birds start displaying, right up until the eggs are hatched, a small roost comes into operation in Berengrave LNR. Small indeed, only getting up to around double figures, but regular, happening each year since I started counting the Magpie roost there in 2013.

One or two might already be in position an hour before sunset, with the last join in nigh-blackness. I say the last, Herons are famous for arriving at roost at all sorts of time of day and night, depending on their feeding preferences (some crepuscular feeders, a few, nocturnal).

During the 90  minutes or so I'll spend there, squabbling always happens. Birds might join in aerial chases for ten, fifteen minutes over the old flooded chalkpit, but eventually they all settle down together, high up in the trees along the water's edge. This favoured area is extremely close to the main path, but they have learned to ignore the few dogwalkers that pass by, heads down.

If I mention the Grey Herons, birders go '...didn't know they nested there, how many pairs?'. And then have trouble computing the answer 'none'. Such roosts are simply not on the radar of many birders.

'Club Loser' will be closed down by the end of the month. Perhaps this roost behaviour, at its start, is similar to something seen in many other colonial species- recognisably immature birds aren't really wanted in the heart of a colony. Perhaps at its end, those adult breeders who drove them off are way too busy providing food for their young to waste time bossing the immatures about. No need to play 'who's the daddy?' now the eggs have hatched.

The old text of 'Birds of the Western Palearctic' hints at limited information on nocturnal roosting but goes on to say that youngsters roost close to the colony throughout the year. The main local colony here is, of course, Northward Hill, the UK's largest. As the Crow flies, some six miles away. The crow's route suits the Herons perfectly throughout most of the year. The estuary is only really beginning to close at Pinup Reach, but has the western island complex scattered around it, and many non-waterbirds choose to cross in this area rather than over more open waters. Of course, the yellow line on the map below is only representative, birds in transit being more widespread than shown, but you get the idea.

The two spurs marked show routes less often used to join that flyway. Interestingly, used more times for 'returning' towards Hoo and Northward Hill than leaving. To me, that implies the birds may well be spreading east during the course of a day, away from the concrete of the Medway Towns, checking a series of feeding areas as they go, before returning direct. Studies have shown adults not only know the better spots, they also know the best times to be there. Youngsters might spend a big part of their hunting time staking out one good spot, not yet appreciating the subtle skills of the seasoned angler. Which might be another appeal for Berengrave- as well escape from all that harassment, somewhere a lot closer to what remains of the southside marshes off to the east.

It also knocks holes in the 'migrating Herons' cognitive bias I suffer when lines of mainly young birds cross Pinup on an early autumn morning.
"Hey, you at the back, you all migrating?"
"Nah, just hungry, that one in front found something yesterday, just following him."

All highly fanciful thinking of course, from my mantra of 'not all movement is migration'. But dreaming about Herons helps pass the time counting the Magpie roost right now. Those numbers are in freefall with their own nesting underway. Couples are coming in together though, feeling safer at the old communal roost than risking a night in a still egg-less nest. But of course there's quite a few single Magpies turning up. Quite a few. 'Club Loser' is open to all, 365 nights a year.

The Circle of Strife

Tonight was an odd set of roost counts. The birds had clearly been disturbed of late. The Magpies pre-assembled all along the western edge of the chalk pit, avoiding the usual spots. The Woodpigeon had deserted in droves. Many of the passerines didn't show (shockingly, Chaffinch only just made double figures). I might have put it down to the warm weather, but the Magpie numbers were still clearly high. I did wonder if the seventeen youngsters congregated at the viewpoint might have been a regular disturbance of late? Sunset was nearly five- plenty of post-school loitering time now, at least they weren't glued to their computers.

Me being me, I stood my ground, nodded and smiled, and started counting. Then stopped smiling and asked them to stop kindly stop throwing their rubbish down the bank. Then to not throw branches down. After about ten minutes of staring me out and eff-ing and jeff-ing in my general direction, they drifted off, not without the odd taunt hurled from a distance.

Ah, the youth of today.

Exactly the same as the youth of yesterday.

I didn't get into birding until post teens, but a general interest in nature had been stirred a few years earlier, mainly, as I recall, through some nicely illustrated AA books and a set of carefully cut out cardboard nature dioramas, care of the nice people at Weetabix. Which was how, as we trudged our way to Luton Recreation ground forty years ago, I had been able to bore my own local 'gang' by continually pointing out one of the few plants I'd learnt, a jolly patch of Lords-and-Ladies, proudly adding "also called arum maculatum" every time. Every single time until the day they'd been flattened. Smashed to bits. Ground into the ground. Even now I can still hear Magoo (our squinty goalpoacher) laughing "Yer won't be saying yer noncey-poncey Latin anymore now, will yer?".

Thank you for that lesson Mr. Magoo, I've never forgotten it.

I was the one now squinting, adding up the notebook ticks in the twilight. Cumulative numbers were down by about a third on last February but I'd broken the 250 mark for the Magpies again, that'd have to do. Time to go. Now if I could just find my way back out in the dark without landing in the little herberts' broken glass, fag butts and crisp wrappers, that'd be grand.

A crowd for the magpie roost

Well, if you can call three a crowd. And two weren't actually there for the roost.

The viewpoint has a charm of its own. Nice view, good birds, comfy enough bench. And loads of rubbish. Two of the Park rangers were on litter patrol, and cursing the so-and-sos who had dropped cigarette papers all over the place. Doesn't sound bad? The usual cans and bottles are quicker to retrieve and there are usually fewer to pick, but these soggy papers just went on and on and on.

I let them know their efforts are appreciated by some of Berengrave's user (especially when they go above and beyond the barrier rails to get pick litter right to the edge of the quarry). The response was a shrug of the shoulders and a weary smile. Appreciation isn't going to stop them being caught in perpetual pick mode. And this isn't the busy time yet. Wait until it warms up a bit.

All the time the Magpies piled in overhead. One loose flock of 32, about ten minutes before sunset, was the biggest single group I've seen arriving in the three winters to date. I refrained from pointing them out to the ranger. Two reasons; (one) she'd probably think me mad as a box of frogs, and (two) she seemed too intent on getting a decent count of those dropped papers for future stories. Observations and data. We all do it.

The Berengrave roost

That Pheasant- a record shot to impress
the Berengrave rarities committee

A new high total of 282 Magpie in tonight, though I was rather more impressed by a Pheasant dropping in, low over my head- the first I've noted roosting here in the three winters I've been counting Berengrave. That's how counting can get you, even the most uber-mundane species can overexcite you just by showing up and doing not a lot a lot.

Redwing numbers were up, and some of them were not quite sure where exactly to go in, circling the chalk pit several times, one or two flying off to the west- recent arrivals from a local movement perhaps? Disturbingly the Chaffinch collapse continued, now less than fifty birds were seen arriving.

But perhaps most interesting to me were the Woodpigeon. Numbers slightly down, perhaps expected after the New Years' Eve fireworks, but more intriguingly the vast majority arrived not from the east and the open countryside, but south and west from the urban sprawl. Local fields lack quality feeding this year, and a switch to the gardens of Medway could be underway.

It all kicks off

Berengrave

23:59, New Year's Eve. I'm standing in Berengrave LNR at the viewpoint over the flooded chalkpit quarry. The odd Magpie and Woodpigeon are giving unsettled calls around me. Fireworks have been going off intermittently for the past five hours, and it is clear quite a few birds have already shifted out from their main roosts over the deeper water to the chalkpit edges. The annual  New Year's celebrations are something that causes a great deal of disturbance to birds, and the 250 or so Magpie and 550-odd Woodpigeon calling the LNR home were about to experience fireworks 'shock and awe'.

00:00. It all kicks off. Woodpigeon start to crash out of the trees around me, hurrying away. In contrast, the magpies go quiet as they pass low over me. Strangely, no sound of passerines. It might be many have moved on the earlier explosions. Their roost numbers have also dropped away in recent years, and so if they do not alarm, you may well miss them. Instead, Lapwing can now be heard overhead, moving inland from the estuary- the annual mass disturbance is now well underway. 

Lower Halstow wharf and church

I've had an interest in this event since the Millenium, when I was witness to a large disturbance over the mouth of the Medway, from Sheerness to Grain, as masses of winter thrushes fled the huge bombardment. Then my years at Rye had proved disturbance flights a given. The large organised display lights up the surrounding marshlands, and I used to record wildfowl fleeing Castle Water heading for the Tillingham valley, with big numbers of passerines, flighting in all directions.

Tonight's big rush was over. I moved down to Motney Hill to try to gauge events there. The flats were pretty much vacant. One or two Teal called, and several lost Dunlin alarmed overhead. A handful of Brent circled the Hill.

Twinney

The waders and wildfowl clearly hadn't enjoyed the experience. I had mused whether they simply head for the main channel where They might feel safer but, then again, several fireworks displays were still in full swing over the Hoo skyline With such a level of disturbance, where would these birds feel safe?

On to Lower Halstow. 01:15. Again, many fewer sounds of life than expected from the creeks, and for a while I was more focused on the squabbling Little Owl with birds on Great Barksore, in the Brickfields and along by Frog Farm all squabbling with each other. Then the call of Dunlin overhead reminded me why I was out. These birds were going inland, high. A distant Grey Heron called from the direction of Ham Green, continuing south and heading off towards Callum Hill.

By the time I reached Funton, the disturbance seemed to be all over. Though the tide was making, little could be picked out. I headed home for rest at 02:00.

Later that day I was pleased to receive a timely retweet linking to a Dutch paper on the subject of fireworks. Clearly there is a lot of real disturbance happening, and the paper hints at a clearly observable level of fatalities. As more birders become aware of this issue, will they start to make the noise? Only time will tell. I take some hope from seeing just nine Chinese lanterns sail over the estuary during my two hours in the field. The message on their dangers seems to be getting through.