14.06.03.
by Tim Melling.
RSPB organised a festival of bird activities over the weekend of 14/15 June 2003, and one of the first events was a dawn chorus walk at Stocks Reservoir.
At 6am on 14th June, about 20 people gathered for the event, led by Tim Melling and Laurence Rose.
We set off from the School Lane Car Park and paused after a few minutes to listen to what was singing. TM announced that there were three species in song, Chaffinch, Willow Warbler and Wren. The group fell silent to listen and the silence was broken by the unmistakeable fluty yodelling “weela-weeoo” of a Golden Oriole!
TM called to LR and said, “Is that what I think it is? Golden Oriole”, and LR readily agreed. The bird called again to confirm its identity, then went quiet.
TM had just returned from leading a Birdwatching trip to Bulgaria where he had regularly managed to get Golden Orioles to respond by imitating their call. He then whistled an impersonation of the call and the bird responded instantly. It continued to respond to whistling for about 5 minutes then went completely silent.
We
did not hear it again on the guided walk, despite repeated whistling from TM at
7:30am when we arrived back in the car park.
The area where it called from was about 150m east of the car park at
approximate grid reference SD734565.
Golden
Oriole is a species that both TM and LR have seen and heard many times before,
both in Britain and abroad.
TM had seen and heard at least one hundred Golden Orioles just the
previous month while leading a trip to Bulgaria.
TM
returned to the car park at 10am to lead a “woodland wander” and announced
to the gathering about our earlier success.
TM again tried to whistle the call and the Golden Oriole duly responded.
It called just three times at 10am then went quiet again.
At the end of the day, TM had chance to investigate the area from which the bird had been calling. It was on the east side of the road about 100m from the car park.
The
area just east of the road was a young spruce plantation, totally unsuitable for
a Golden Oriole.
However, the “blue trail” led to a small grove of tall Aspen trees
just 150m from the car park where we had heard the bird from.
This was presumed to be the area from which the bird sang.
It
was not heard again all that day, or the following day, despite a small
gathering from soon after dawn.
Tim
Melling
16 June 2003.