A dawn chorus on Crookham Common

On Sunday 4th May, nine members met at the car park at the corner of Crookham Road and Old Thornford Road at 5am for a dawn chorus walk. Following a week of a mini heatwave, it came as a bit of a shock with temperatures dropping from 28°C to a forecast of 15°C for the day. Although very chilly, we set off hopefully for a good morning of sightings.

Nightingales have frequently been found around the area near the car park in recent years, but I believe they seem to have abandoned this in favour of more suitable habitat on the common. On my recent walks around the pools, I have had at least two birds singing, and this proved to be the case as we set off on our walk. A distant bird was heard near Thornford Park. A Song Thrush was singing near the car park and, as we walked through the woodland path, we had Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Robins and Blackbirds.

On to the common and we found our first Whitethroat, which we all managed to see close by, and then a Willow Warbler singing nearby. Making a first stop to look over the pools, a Little Egret flew over, with Mallards and Black-headed Gulls on the water while a Red Kite also flew over. It was commented that the pools are very much harder to see these days with the willow saplings getting bigger every year.

We carried onwards to find Lesser Whitethroats, Garden Warblers, more Whitethroats and in the distance a Cuckoo was heard. A good flock of up to twelve Linnets were very mobile with Greenfinches and Goldfinches in ones and twos on the treetops. As we reached the furthest corner of the pools, we picked up a Firecrest calling, although we didn’t manage to see it. It was probably amongst the conifers nearby.

Walking back towards the entrance gate, we found a solitary Dartford Warbler on the gorse nearby. Some of us stayed around to see two more, although one of them could have been the first bird.

Finally, we went to find the Nightingale that we had heard earlier, he did not disappoint us, and we savoured his magical chorus. A bonus pair of Stonechats were seen too, which I have found quite elusive in recent weeks. We made our way back through the woods, time for a group photo with the sun shining and a great morning behind us, despite the cold, with a count of 37 species.