NOTES FROM MY DIARY

We lived beside the Icknield Way at Icklingham from June 1948 to October 1949. September 24th 1949

I decided to investigate an area of Tuddenham Heath between the track from Temple Bridge to Tuddenham St Mary and the River Lark at the Tuddenham end. Crossing the heath from Temple Bridge, small groups and singles of stone curlew got up, as well as a party of 25 from among the heather, which was not as beautiful as usual because of the very dry summer. Leaving the main track I turned into a rough and bumpy one going towards the river, through an electric fence that was not working, to a blockhouse on the edge of the Fen. The west side of the track looked interesting, with areas of reed and water plants in dried up hollows, whilst towards the river there was much willowherb, water dock, marsh thistles and with a background of sallow bushes. On the high tension wires crossing the heath were five small finches, which I could not identify against the light, except to say that one was definitely a linnet. However, as I watched, the other four came down to a little willow nearby and from thence to a clump of seedling marsh thistles and no more than about 30 yards distant. I quickly wrote down the plumage details, as I always did for unusual birds in those days, but to cut a long story short, I was watching a family party of two adult and two very young siskins, the first time I had ever seen this species feeding on thistle heads. (My impression at the time was that they were locally hatched, 15 years before confirmed breeding in Suffolk, Piotrowski 2003.) Having examined them closely, I was engulfed in a sudden downpour and dashed back to the blockhouse where I found 15 small tortoiseshells already hibernating.

To get home, I decided to cut along the perimeter track of the old airfield to the Cavenham road, putting up many lapwing and stone curlews as I did so. A party of RAF trainers practising low flying added to the confusion and with these, the sky seemed full of lapwing, stone curlew, singing skylarks and twittering meadow pipits. Despite the open nature of the countryside, being on my bike, I was able to approach many of the lapwing and stone curlew very closely and had excellent views of both. One lapwing was bathing in a deep puddle by the perimeter track while others were doing display flight and singing. Stone curlews were everywhere from singles up to parties of 30 or 40, and were in view the whole time (about two miles) until I reached the road and turned towards Icklingham to find myself in the middle of a flock of about 200 meadow pipits that were gathered amongst the heather to roost.