Editorial: Nick Mason

Nick Mason

every time, that’s every day, that i walked out of my home during the lockdowns in 2020, i felt a pang of pain for all those stuck in a flat in the middle of town. Not guilt – because that’s where i live – but a worry about how those people were coping. i was just lucky, being able to walk out of my house to visit heath, wood, grazing marsh, saltmarsh or the sea. When back home, i had a garden to sit in and birds and butterflies to prevent me from concentrating on my reading! i sincerely hope that you have all got through this mostly unscathed. i know that many lost loved ones, me included. throughout the report you will see comments such as ‘Covid-restricted’ where not all the data that we should normally expect to find are present. Many surveys did not take place, especially during the first lockdown. rSPB and SWt staff were furloughed and several volunteer surveyors were restricted in their movements. considering all that, i feel that we have a fair reflection of the state of Suffolk birds in 2020. Many people found solace in nature, especially near to home and it is clear that many found wildlife nearby of which they were not fully aware. 2020 is the first year since 2013 that there have been no additions to the list of Suffolk birds. there were, however, some real rarities and some of those gave Suffolk birders the chance to catch up with them in their home county. the Gull-billed tern was refound by Andrew Gregory and we have his account plus additional information from Philip Murphy and others. Rob Holmes has written about the rustic Bunting at Lowestoft that he found and Adam Rowlands about his finding of the Greater yellowlegs at Dunwich. Adam has also added to Dave Fairhurst’s account and description of the Sizewell Booted Warbler. the Sooty tern at Minsmere and Dunwich did not hang around but we are fortunate that John Grant was able to write a report on it. Not a full species, but of great interest is Steppe Grey Shrike. Andrew Moon, who found this bird, has written a full article on this ‘subspecies’ that was at Benacre in early october. it is not easy to get to grips with the taxonomy of this bird!

Wordsmith John Grant has also offered us up a touching and personal article on his devotion to

Minsmere. We should all be able to relate to his passion for a site and our own birding, and other wildlife, experiences here or elsewhere.

Spoonbills are certainly back! the number of sightings on the coast and at the temporarily flooded Lodge Marsh at ramsholt was impressive – and these birds are hopefully a permanent feature of our avifauna from now on. Mike Marsh has written about the 2020 nesting season on Havergate island and puts all these sightings into context. Justin Zantboer’s interesting piece describing the common Scoter movement overland and overnight shows us what we could all be missing when we watch too much tV at home! Another excellent article by Andrew Moon expands on his previous piece (Harrier No. 204 – spring 2021: 28 – 32) on nesting Sand Martins local to his home and Richard Attenborrow had time during lockdown to give us an account of the bird species in his garden over the years.

We thank everyone of the above writers for their efforts – all interesting and very worthy.

We are lucky to have the section writers that we do. it can take ages to work through all the records received from the county recorders, especially nowadays with thousands upon thousands of Birdtrack data. Gi Grieco starts off the systematic list with the game birds, geese and swans. the gamebirds now come at the beginning of the British list (yes, more changes!) – so he has kindly added them to his previous species. then come the ducks, all ably written up by Andrew Green. Nightjar, Swifts, cuckoo and pigeons then follow – covered by the dependable Darren Underwood. Darren also does the owls, Hoopoe, kingfisher and woodpeckers section which is much further on in the list, following the raptors. John Davies does a fine job with the rails, crakes and grebes section. i am pleased that Margie Carter continues with the Stone-curlew to plover section – it would be good to have more women contributing as well as to see them out in the field. Ed Keeble does a sterling job on the wader section, as well as helping us out in other ways with the report. the gulls and skuas sections are now either side of the terns in the British list – it is pleasing to see the effort that James Wright puts in. in between, the terns are knowledgeably covered by Brian Buffery, who is also doing the auks which now follow skuas! our chairman, chris courtney, writes on the divers and shearwaters and, the dependable Peter Lack on the storks, cormorants and herons. then follows Chris Gregory’s raptor section. He, of course, also does the falcons, which, as before, are at the end of the non-passerines. the passerines start with ring-necked Parakeet. that species and the shrikes, corvids and tits are well covered by Phil Whittaker. Nick Mason writes about the larks and hirundines and then come all those warblers; we are fortunate to have the professional Peter Kennerley to cover this group. the crests, treecreeper and thrushes section is written by Richard Attenborrow and the robin, flycatchers, chats and wheatears by Steve Fryett. the sparrows, wagtails, finches and buntings section is a quite large one and is admirably written by Paul Gowen. finally, the appendices, probable escapees and introductions, has been written by Adam Gretton.

We thank every one of the above-mentioned writers for their time and effort and good grace in the face of adversity!

After doing a good stint with the ringing report, Simon Evans has retired from this task. thank you Simon for all that you did. unfortunately, we could not find a replacement for Simon. there are some ringing records included in the report but they are in the systematic list. they appear at the end of the species involved. thank you especially to Mike Marsh and Dave Fairhurst for providing most of these. the rest i have taken from the Bto list of Suffolk ringing records. i am not a ringer and hope that they come across ok. it is fair to say that having the ringing info with the species is a reasonable way to go forward.

As usual, Philip Murphy has been delving around for extra information to make this report more interesting. He finds errors that i have overlooked and generally keeps the report afloat! Phil Whittaker has collated the artwork and John Richardson the photographs. We are genuinely fortunate to have such a broad range of excellent photographers in Suffolk and like to use as great a cross-section of them as we can.

i do need to give a big apology to Peter Beeson. Peter has provided us with first-class drawings for years. However, last year his drawings were not included – due to a mix-up. they are, however, well represented here!

We were unclear about who will be the area recorders going in to 2022. Steve Fryett will be continuing his good work for the south-east area. After a difficult year, Colin Jakes will continue his stint in the west. thankyou colin. Suffice to say that we are eternally grateful for the work that Andrew Green has done over many years. We are lucky to have Dick Walden to take on his role – possibly on a temporary basis – thank you Dick!

By the time this report is printed we should know more about the Sizewell c situation. i have been impressed by all those who have worked in their different ways to support Minsmere.

Given the number of ospreys that we see in the Alde estuary on both spring and autumn passage, hopefully the proposed introduction will go ahead and they will eventually breed at the site chosen by the Suffolk Wildlife trust.

As usual i should encourage everybody to submit their records to the relevant area recorder. thankyou to all those who do. And thankyou to all the organizations, such as Landguard Bird observatory, for your data. the Landguard data always arrives early in the year. We would welcome earlier receipt of data from other sources as well!