A Real Lark Ascending

The river on our previous visit

We went to Cuckmere on Sunday with Rose's parents. There a twisty river meets the sea at the feet of the seven sisters. Rose and I had been there a few years ago and it was drab and grey but this time the weather was kind to us. The spitting rain of the morning disappeared the moment we sat down to have a picnic beside the river and the countryside/riverside birds were gregarious in the sun.

There were little egrets like whitewashed herons predating the river and a kestrel hovering. We asked a birdwatching couple if they had seen anything and they said, 'not much: meadow pipit, whitethroat…' (neither of which we've ever seen). Then we saw two linnets drinking from a puddle, sparrow-sized but tinged strawberry-pink, some stonechats, swallows, cormorants and herons.

Best of all though were the skylarks. As soon as we got near the river to have our picnic, we could hear their insistent, complicated song that goes on and on without stopping. They nest on the ground in the long grasses near the water and they look like many British birds: brown and grey and black, speckled and striped. It's important to look as dull and mud-like as possible if you're going to nest on the ground, so close to predators. Like many plain-looking British birds the skylarks' secret weapon is their song, and they fly as they sing it. They rise upwards in obvious display mode broadcasting their songs in a wide boastful arc.

Vaughn Williams wrote a piece, a kind of violin concerto called 'The Lark Ascending' inspired by the British soldiers who heard the lark singing in the silences between gunfire over the trenches on the Western Front, and it would remind them of home. As we watched a single lark ascend into the blinding blue sky above us, singing its complex music, I tried to see it as the symbol of hope it was for those soldiers. I was glad to have the chance to see/hear for myself what VW was celebrating and I think you can hear some larkish similarities in the more extended twiddly violin passages.

That little bird in the middle is a skylark (you'll probably have to take my word for it). I took this picture the first time we went to Cuckmere,  though at the time we didn't know what it was.

Skylark singing. It's pretty intense.

'The Lark Ascending' by Ralph Vaughn Williams

The progress of this year's peregrine family

Last time this blog saw the peregrine family they were 2 adults and 4 eggs. Now they are 2 adults and 4 teenage hatched eggs. It was around 2nd May when they started hatching, now they're a month old and pretty much getting ready to leave the nest it seems.

I can't see them from my window anymore. We have moved. We have different windows. I can still see them from the street if I walk round the corner but it's not quite as fun. Here in our new flat there are quite a few starlings who hang around on the rooftops. I listen to their songs, which sometimes include a lovely glissando from high to low, the full gamut of their range. I must listen out for them imitating blackbirds and ringtones. Sometimes I hear goldfinches flying by but I haven't seen any and there have been some swifts in the sky this evening, they squeaked by almost at my eye-level. But alas we cannot see peregrines.

I haven't paid attention to much of the peregrines' chickhood, which I am starting to regret. We watched them for a while on the webcam the other day. They were feasting on a pigeon. Imagine seeing a peregrine catch a pigeon! In mid-air. (Did I say all this last year?) 

The nest box now is a death scene of pigeon feathers and bones. I can see the sun is rising in the webcam. Only one chick is in there at the moment. Have the others left him/her behind and ventured out into the world beyond the nest?

Here are some photos charting their development from egg to fluffy white thing to mini peregrine.