Hi guys, thought I'd give you the bad news from Thurlbear, the two Nightingales we had singing from the 15th sang for two days then disappeared and haven't been heard from since, real shame! so those birds must of been just passing through, so I suppose the family of birds that have been breeding here over all these years are now no longer. Last year we only had two males singing so not sure how many young they produced but the chance of their off-spring returning and starting new families is going to be really slim. So there you have it these birds are probably on the front line of climate change, with things like the Sahara getting wider and wider and less places for them to stop off and rest, also problems of habitat loss, hunting and development etc...in their wintering grounds. Anyway fingers crossed for next year! On a positive note from Thurlbear Woods there has been two Cuckoo's calling for two weeks now and a few Garden Warbler. Also lots of Song Thrush on site singing!
Edward, Paul and Alan, can anyone please provise me with an OS Grid Reference as I would love to come down from Bath to listen, but don't want to wander aimlessly around the Martock Area!!
Sorry Nigel but my original posting was deliberately unspecific in accordance with Brian Gibbs' posting on 13th February related to care in posting during the breeding season. It was intended merely to record that there were nightingales about.
Since then several reports from differing locations have been more pessimistic than in previous years regarding the status of nightingales in Somerset.
This week we have only had one unenthusiastic performance by a nightingale at the site in question and so we hope that the silence is the product of the birds getting down to nesting, rather than failing to find a mate and moving elsewhere
This is not me being uncooperative and am sure that you will appreciate that it is not prudent to broadcast the location at this delicate stage.
Echoing Alan's posting above I must also not be specific as the site is on private land accessed via a track past the farmers house - with the drying up of the usual well known public sites at Thurlbeare and others it would lead to a constant trickle of birders driving down there which I am sure would annoy him and lead to no-one being allowed . The two sites are separate though not far apart as the crow flies and there are probably more to be found with time and leg work. You may ask why post about birds on private land that can't be visited by others - mainly so that the county recorders pick up on this as I must admit I am lazy when it comes to sending in records , and it lets others have a flavour of what is happening around them so they might be alerted to look for them themselves. If the birds were in a safe place and within sight/earshot of a public path, I wouldn't hesitate to post location, as in previous years when we have had them along the Westport canal and the birds were in dense blackthorn scrub on the other side.
The reticence in posting precise details of sites is both understandable and in line with our posting guidelines, as noted.
For those wanting to hear Nightingales this year, there is the Cogload site featured in the last issue of The Bittern. The birds are pretty safely tucked away in the scrub between railway lines and audible (and visible distantly if you're very lucky) from the canal towpath at cST300274. Limited parking available at Charlton (near Creech Heathfield) or Outwood (off A361 between Durston and West Lyng).
