Monday 16 March 2020 was the day I had my car booked in for its MoT. But it also was due to be dry, warm, sunny, and with light winds. And I’d finished two big book edits the previous week, so finally could look at getting some birding in during the week. Portland? No – I’d already written that out of the playbook for the time being before the lockdown. It looked a perfect day to try once more for Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in the Quantocks though. So once I’d dropped my car off at the garage and picked up the courtesy car, I headed up there. I met Nick Wall at one spot for them (sorry to be vague, but SOS policy is not to publicise LSW sites on the web – most of the best sites are well known to local birders anyway), but no joy there, so we decided to try another spot nearby. A little bit of a hike, but so worth it – Nick’s sharp eyes ensured we saw both of a pair that started calling close to us, and heard another two birds (a second pair?) close by too. (We found out later that another local birder, Mark Stone, had photographed four together in the same tree (!) in almost the same spot that morning.) Always a privilege to watch these fantastic little birds.
Next stop was on the coast at Stolford, looking for early migrants. It was quiet, but I managed to turf out my first Wheatear of the year, a smart male, along the seawall. Just the one, but that’ll do for now. That stretch of coast is also the only regular spot for Brent Geese in Somerset, and a flock of 50+ was still present and showing well that day, the vast majority of them Pale-bellied (all Brents are great, but the Pale-bellied race is definitely better-looking in my eyes).
I was wandering back to the car when I got a text from Dave Chown, who had just found a drake Ring-necked Duck on Wet Moor, south of Langport. I quickly spread the news, then started heading over that way – if I was quick, I could have a look for that before heading back to Ilminster. Also in the back of my mind was the Ring-billed Gull seen at Cheddar Reservoir by Chris Craig and Dan Watson the evening before – if I picked my own car up early enough, could I make it up there to have a look for it too?
Happily, the flood waters of recent weeks had receded enough that the Langport to Muchelney road was open again, but Dave wasn’t kidding when he said wellies were needed to access the drove from which he was watching the duck – at one point I was wading to within an inch or so of the top of my wellies and risking seriously wet feet. Dave was still there when I made it to the edge of the flood, and pointed out the bird to me – distant, and diving a lot, but still decent scope views. A wide selection of other wildfowl there too (Pintail, Wigeon etc.), amongst which a Whooper Swan and 3 Bewick’s were definite bonuses, as were 10 Cranes from the reintroduction project, including one of last year’s youngsters.
The garage called – my car had sailed through the MoT and was now ready. Great! Time was now running on, though, and it was gone 5 pm when I got back into Ilminster and swapped cars. It would be 6 pm by the time I got to Cheddar – pretty close to dusk. Worth a try? Why not?
Meanwhile, others had already gone to Cheddar to check out the gulls. Because I was driving I missed Rog Musgrove’s initial tweet, but eventually worked out what was going on. The Laughing Gull from Chew Valley Lake had relocated to Cheddar Res and was there now! Scream!
Laughing Gull was a county tick for me, and a gripback on most other Somerset birders who bother to keep a county list – indeed I knew plenty of out-of-county birders who had Laugher up on me for Somerset, as many twitched the famous Burnham bird in 1988 (before I lived in the county or twitched regularly). The last Somerset one had turned up at Stolford the very next day after that wonderful 5th of November in 2005, and I had come down to earth with a big bump, as I missed it agonisingly closely – I was on-site but at the Hinkley Point end when it briefly reappeared back near the car park, and had gone again by the time I made it back there. So this was serious!
I thanked my lucky stars that my punt in heading for Cheddar at least put me in the game (I wouldn’t have made it that night from home), but would it pay off? Thankfully the answer was yes. Fifteen years of hurt put to bed! Some of the other local birders there were surprised I had made it so quickly, and I took some good-natured stick (‘You tart’, etc.) about it being a county tick, but we all settled down to enjoy the bird. Even then I nearly missed out on the Ring-billed Gull when it was picked up again: some Devon birders I knew had been looking for the Laugher at Chew and then dashed down to Cheddar, so I was directing them on to it and didn’t hear the Ringer being called. But quick looks through a couple of others’ scopes at the Ringer, plus great views of the 1st-winter Little Gull (a wee cracker itself) and a couple of Med Gulls in the roost, and it all worked out very well. Hell of a day!
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