Cheddar Gorgeous birds

Friday, 23 May 2008 19.03

Under Somerset Skies

Posted by Matt Brierley

The sign advertising the “stopless topless bus” of Cheddar Gorge always gets a raised eyebrow and sometimes a giggle. Part of the Cheddar Caves Company Explorer Ticket, it’s an ace way to get a taster of the gorge and, if you’re lucky, catch a glimpse of the birdlife.    

I was on the bus now, looking for inspiration for a bird ID sheet I was producing. 

With the wind in my hair, I thought back to the last time I was in a topless vehicle. I was in African “Big Five” country, surrounded by a thousand snorting wildebeest that, at some point would - we were assured - sweep majestically across the plain.

In Cheddar the bus was passing Lion Rock. Silver-capped jackdaws glinted in the sunshine, diving into wafer-thin crevasses with twigs clamped in their beaks. A pair of buzzards – mischievously dubbed the tourist’s eagle in Scotland – circled on afternoon thermals. Buzzards are on the up, reclaiming the range that DDT robbed from them at a rate of knots. They’re everywhere. Even soaring majestically above Torquay. 

The road was narrowing, the gradient sharpening, and limestone cliffs beginning to tower on either side. To my right, three carboniferous pinnacles pierced the sky. Halfway up, so precipitously placed as to lodge a seed of doubt in even Isaac Newton’s mind, a wild goat seemed to be … sunbathing? I shielded my eyes against the glare of the sun and peered upward. Perfect timing. The jackdaws clacked and chattered, skittering off as a raven – with a wingspan to match the buzzard’s 165cm - lazily launched itself with a “korrrrp, korrrrp, korrrrp”. It’s an impressive bird anyway, but when it comes to ravens I can’t escape a slight pang of jealous rivalry – I’ve spent far too many hours shut in a room trying to roll my rs for Swedish exams, not to reserve a certain respect for a crow whose got it sorted. It’s when ravens start dabbling in flatpack furniture assembly that I’ll get worried. 

The bus turned around, the Cheddar Cave guide’s endless stream of facts whetting our appetites and firing our imaginations as we began our descent. We slowed. We stopped. We watched. This was peregrine territory but – to misuse a Take That lyric - it wasn’t to be. To give nature its dues, the time-tabling so far had been text-book, and you know how it is with peregrines – you wait all day then… 

Back on the bus, still looking for inspiration. Four peregrines. The very next day. Two breeding pairs? Last year’s kids back to visit the folks? A hostile take-over bid? No matter, I’d got the full Cheddar set. The buzzard, the raven, the peregrine. I’d seen them all. The three biggest wingspans of the gorge from a topless bus. I thought back to Africa. It was obvious. The Cheddar Big Three. I can’t believe it took me so long.