For Whom The Cuckoo Clock Tolls

Today I was treated to an increasingly rare sight: two Cuckoos – presumably a pair – flying across Frodsham Marsh.

It seems this area is a bit of a hotspot for Cuckoo, no wonder considering the legions of Reed Warblers nesting in the phragmites. It is sad to note the decline of this once relatively common migrant, but perhaps it will take a major event like the extinction of the Cuckoo as a British breeding bird to awaken the general public to the lamentable condition of our countryside.

I wouldn’t bet on it though; as long as there is a clutch of nasty and vindictive television programmes to watch and a retail park within driving distance of home, then why does it matter? Springwatch deserves lots of credit for highlighting this worrying fall in numbers, although I do feel they are preaching to the converted.

Plenty of parent passerines this afternoon busy carrying food for young, including Whitethroat, Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipit. Lots and lots of Swifts about too, brought down no doubt by the increasingly heavy rain.

Walking around number 6 tank, I noticed some ‘landscaping’ had taken place in the sandy, sparsely vegetated north-west section. Three entrances measuring about ten feet across had been bulldozed into the bank, and then tonnes of sand had been dumped along the edge, forming a strip about 5 metres wide and 150 metres in length.

All this had occurred at the exactly the location numbers of Lapwing, Skylark and Ringed Plovers would have been nesting – how crass! Congratulations Peel Holdings.

Until later.