Saturday 5 March 2011

Patch on fire!!!!!

20/02/11
with the school holidays i had decided to cram in as much birding as possible so on sunday i was out on the patch doing a walk to the gadwall lake, and back via the 2 woods
On the way down to the gadwall lake it was extremly quiet although a large flock of SISKIN in the lickhill birch wood took a bit of looking through, but when i didnt pick up anything different i left but would come back after to check it out...
The large flock of Reed Bunting was still showing well at the Gadwall lake with 11+ Birds noted as they all sat on a hawthorn a few metres from me.........
stunning birds.....
But with the rest of the patch being quiet i decided to head back to the Siskin flock and what a good desision that was....
ON walking towards the flcok o could imidiatly hear Redpoll 'chi-chi-chi' ing away at the tops of the trees, and i was amazed to see 20 Odd Redpoll feeding above me......
I started scanning and immidatly picked out 2 MEALY REDPOLL, very outstanding white birds, and looking stunning at the tops of the trees, As you would expect i stayed in the area for some time and after seeing lots of finches i heard a CROSSBILL!!!!!!!
It flew over in a basic South-north direction but as i was in a small clearing i only had the bird in my bins for about 7 seconds while it flew over but it never tried to land, However a patch first, spurred on i continued scanning the flocks of birds, A Ravern flew over, as did a Peregrine, 3 Treecreeper were feeding in the wood, and after getting my fill on the bird i decided to leave but as i reached the bottom floor of the wood ( the wood is on a slope) i saw 3 birds perched in a popular type tree at the edge of the wood, i couldnt pick out any detail on them through my bins so out came the scope again and having locked onto the birds, my jaw dropped!!!!

BRAMBLINGS!!!

Patch MEGA!!
2 male birds and a female,
having got a really crap video of the birds, i phoned my dad and he came down to take a look, but in the time he got there they dissapeared, but after 15 mins, 2 of the birds popped up in the same tree and i took some footage a little bit better than the last one, and just to prove there was bramblings that day here is the video...




Highlights:


3 BRAMBLING


1 CROSSBILL


2 MEALY REDPOLL


20c Lesser Redpoll


60c Siskin


20c goldfinch


10c chaffinch


11+ Reed bunt


MB

3 comments:

Jason K said...

Looks like you had a great half-term Craig.

I noticed that you had a flyover Goosander at Wolverley on Friday. Funnily enough had one at Shenstone on the same afternoon.

boatbirder said...

Ah Craig, I love reading your blog!! You remind me of my early days of birding when I spent hours and hour with The Young Ornithologists Club at school.

Your enthusiam just shines through! Well done on the Brambling and the Crossbill is the icing on the cake.

http://www.keithsbirding.blogspot.com/

midlands birder said...

Jase- there is still plenty to come :P
there has been quite a few goosander around hagley/blakedown area recently....
Keith- its always nice to get a comment like this, cheers :)
i try to use some of limited youthful cheer in my blog posts and out birding, even if it is slowly being drained away from me with school atm :)
Cheers again
MB