Sunday 22 April 2012

Up S**t Crake?

After setting various nets on Friday evening i set off for Woolston at 3.45am meeting Kieran at 4.15am. Once on the bed we went our separate ways opening nets at opposite ends of no.3 bed. Whilst opening nets in the NW corner (4.45am) my phone rang, it was Kieran? He asked where i was and then told me he had just had calling Little Crake! So as calmly as i could finished setting then made my way over to the 'rail ride'. Whilst walking over it was obvious the Black-headed Gull colony was starting to stir and by the time i had reached the 'rail ride' the noise was positively deafening. Upon reaching Kieran the conversation went some thing like this:
Kieran: Hi mate, it wasn't a Little Crake
Me: Oh?
Kieran No, it was a f*****g Baillon's Crake
Me: Your f*****g joking
Kieran: No, it called about 9 times
Me: F**k
Kieran: As soon as i put the phone down from you i realised
Me: F**k
As you can tell it was quite a tense situation for us both. With the noise from the gulls we had no chance of hearing it again that morning so set about returning that evening. We arrived at 9.30pm and left at 11.00pm with only a distant Water Rail, to be fair the bloody gulls were still at it and wouldn't shut up. So it goes down as potentially the one that got away and Kieran has previous experience with Baillon's Crake so don't doubt for a second it was one. If it stays it could be one hell of an awkward twitch!
That aside it was pretty good on no.3. 2 Little Gulls that were alive were present and the first Grasshopper Warbler of the year was caught.


1 comment:

Grumpy Ecologist said...

Hi Jason

I'm interested in Baillon's Crake records this spring. Can you get in touch to give me some more detail about this record?

Graham White