Stone Curlews, Nightjars and Woodlarks. More memories from my teenage years in Suffolk.

Harking back to again to my teenage years spent birding in Suffolk under the tutelage of good friends. In those mid seventies years species such as Stone Curlew, Nightjar and Woodlark were still relatively scarce breeding species in the UK. The Brecklands of Suffolk and Norfolk were the best place to see these birds. Nightjar and Stone Curlew were considered summer visitors whereas Woodlark could be found throughout the year but were easier to find when they were singing.  Even then the Woodlark population probably didn't exceed 50 pairs and their preference for clear felled areas of the coniferous forests planted in the Brecks, by the then Forestry Commission, meant it was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack

The song of the Woodlark gives it its latin name of Lullula arborea with a sweet descending  'lu, lu,lu,lu...' A beautiful song and one that instantly takes me back to those early years in Suffolk. 

About the only place to see Woodlark in the UK at that time was in the Brecks. The same with Stone Curlew. East Anglia and the Brecks in particular were their UK stronghold and probably the best place was the Norfolk Wildlife Trusts reserve at Weeting Heath. 

If my memory serves me well it was the very hot summer of 1976 that I first went to Weeting heath and saw my first Stone Curlew in a terrible heat haze and sweltering heat. Touring the Brecks we walked miles in the blazing sunshine before eventually finding a singing Woodlark. 

Since then I've seen Woodlark and Stone Curlew numerous times and they're both on my Cheshire list courtesy of a Stone Curlew found by Mark Turner at Leasowe in April 2009 (see here) and three Woodlark i na stubble field near Congleton on the same day I twitched a Pied grebe at Hollingsworth Lake, Greater Manchester in Novmeber 2010! (see here)

Stone Curlew, Lleasowe 2009

At least it was cooler when I saw my first Nightjar. I remember getting bitten alive by midges waiting, as dusk fell, outside the perimeter fence of some M.O.D land listening intently for that first 'churr' follewed by birds in flight and wing clapping. Who'd have thought in those early days that Nightjar would expand their UK range so much and now breed only a few miles away from where we live in Cheshire. Indeed, back then , as a trainee bird ringer at Wicken Fen, I couldn't imagine I'd ever get to ring one. Something I was fortunate enough to do a couple of years ago.

Although Woodlark and Nightjar are currently doing well in the UK and have expanded their breeding range another Breckland speciality has been lost as a regular British breeding bird. The Brecks were the last stronghold of the Red-backed Shrike in the UK and their nesting sites were a closely guarded secret. I was lucky enough to see several pairs during my time birding in Suffolk and saw probably the last Breckland pair in 1988 when a pair bred in the car park of  the St Helens picnic site at Santon Downham Country park near Brandon. At that time my parents still lived nearby and I remember rocking my young daughter in her pram with one hand whilst holding my binoculars in the other watching the shrikes who'd nested in a large bush in the car park and protected by red and white tape! 

Female Red-backed Shrike at nest in Santon Downham copyright of http://santondownham.org/Archive/2016/redbackedshrike.html