Bloggers day out...

10/04/11
A days Birding, in apparently gods county, where you have to work for your birds, and it is better than upton warren.. (apparently)

Bloggers day members:

Me :)

Martyn Y ( Blurred Birder)

Kay D (Brightside Birder)

Richard P (Local Birding 4 Local people)

Our first target was on Cannock Chase, where a long staying GREAT-GREY SHRIKE was present, Not long after we had got out of the car we were treated to views of a gorgeous singing male Common Redstart, There area was plastered with Willow warbler with seemingly one singing from ever other tree, a few Meadow pipits flew over in the cool morning breeze

The Shrike was picked out at distance, and we moved closer to where we thought the bird was, we Found another Male Redstart singing and showing nicely in the Sun, and we climbed up a steep track to be greated with great Scope views of the shrike.

(Great-Grey Shrike- Cannock Chase)

After we had had our fill of the Shrike we walked to another section on the area where we had 2 Singing Tree Pipit, one of which was perched up in a tree, giving quite good views

We then decided to have a check of a nearby Vally, where a flock of 4 Stonechat ( 2 M) were feeding, alot more Meadow pipits started moving, and as we were walking back up the vally, we picked up a distant RED KITE, the others got more exited than i did because you get them all the time in worcester :P

After this we headed to a little bit of open water, Blithfield Res.
A single Common sand and 2 LRP were feeding near the causeway, But i was bemused by the lack of Gulls/terns, there were no terns, and maybe only a couple of BHG.
The Deeps gave us 2 (??) Wheatear one of which shown well on a ledge.






(Wheatear- Blithfield Res)

It also gave us 3 Yellow Wagtails one of which was a stunning male,



(terrible male Yellow Wagtail shot)

We then moved onto a Small area of wasteland with a puddle in it, and it held, 2 OYC, a mulitude of LRP, 2 Redshank and a Wheatear.

A check of a Gravel pit nearby (name has been lost to me) had us seeing a Pair of Mandarin,a Green sand, a few duck species, a few Curlew, and teal, BY now it was getting very hot, and very dusty, and we couldnt find any birds :P

We then headed back up to Blithers where a quick check of the deep end had the yellow wags again, Then we decided to head up to Tad bay, where things livened up for the last stand of the day. A pair of Pintails were at the far north end, as was 2 Female Goosander, alot of Wigeon and Teal, and 4 Goldeneye were showing ( 2 drk)
A Good few birds tbh
Cheers for the day to the Bloggers
MB

DUCKING & DIVING

06/03/10

OK you all confortable, cause this is gonna be a big one............

martyn from blurred birder had kindly offered my a day out and about, i agreed and this is how the day pans out.........

Out of the house by 7:15 and on our way for our first tick....

we arrived at the top barn actvity lake at around 7:40, we scanned from the road, SLAVONIAN GREBE (lifer 204), we moved closer to the bird and it came at us, the bird came closer still untill i could no longer focous my scope propperly on it.

and this is why:

a frame filler of a 'slav', and what a bird, and what a way for a lifer to act,

come on,

this was outragelously close

martyn with his new spangle dangle camera, produced some out of the world shots, a few of which are reproduced on his blog..

we watched the bird as it ever so slowly followed its prey

along the bank in front of us, diving every 5 secs or so, and producing many fish(i didnt catch any shots though)....

even martyn was amazed how close it was, and he commented on how you proderbly would never see one so close again

but anyways

onwards and upwards

DRAYCOTE WATER being our target, in the centre of a town while stopped at some trafic lights a peregrine flew low over the car, stunning bird whenever you see them..

just as we entered the car park a YELLOWHAMMER aligted on a hedge, a bird i dont see regularly so well chuffed.

we parked at the hensborough bank car park which over looks the reserviour,

oh my bloody hell, THATS HUGE

but anyway, down the hill we went onto the side of the water, scanning as we went, 3 shoveler were picked out in the middle, and small flock of goldeneye and tufted duck were dotted everywhere.

a bit along draycote bank we picked up the 2 GREAT NORTHER DIVERS (lifer 205), apparently showing well but allas, well to far out for a decent photo, we stopped and watched these for a bit while scanning the res. nothing new was picked up so onwards we went....

in a small wooded area a bullfinch called. we continued towards the outlet and i saw a 'white' bird dive, was this him, we waited for a seemingly long time for the bird to resurface, then BANG

DRAKE SMEW(lifer 206) ohhhhh, what a stunner of a bird, it was quite close to the bank, but like the slav grebe, was diving rapidly(but you cant predict where it will come up like the slav).

i managed some photos:

but the red necked grebe was obviously not on this side, so we headed of to farnbourgh bank, we walked around to the opposite side of the res' and stopped half way up with picking up a load of GC grebes on the way up,

a male sparrowhawk was in a hunting mood and chased a feral pigeon acrosss a field but the pigeon got away, boooooooooo
a curlew called, but wasent seen
a few goldeneye were close in and wigeon, teal and yet more GC grebe were in toft bay, then i picked up the diver swimming towards us away from the boats, it got closer and closer, and closer, and closer untill it run out of water and swam past us at no more the 20-30 range, but it failed to raise its head:





the crowd quickly built as more and more birders piled in to get stunning views of the diver.

a good wait followed, we all wanted that 'head up' shot, and then it awoke, i didnt take advantage and only got a couple of 'keepers'.


after it moved from the crowd and back towards me where it did a swim past and duly fell asleap.

and just to prove a point, this is how close the diver was on 0x zoom:


hows about that then, how close is that !!!!!!!!!!!!!

out of hundreds and hunderes of millions of gallons of water in the res, it chose to go right next to the very busy path.

god bless you GND

we were near the boat club centre when the drake SMEW flew past into toft bay.

next loaction TAMWORTH:

and these beautys:



WAXWING x3

as always, the birds shown superbly atop the trees in the centre of an island, my first chance to get a decent photo of one, but the 'milky' white sky was horrible.


and all 3:


to be honest, i didnt think i was going to catch up with any this winter, so to see just a few is well worth it, and a great time watching and photographing these,

the birds started to decend on the berrys and we all poised to get the shot not agains the sky when

'ZR'rrrrrrrrrrrrrr' in comes the pair of mistle thrush to force the waxwing onto wires near the school, where they all posed beautifully:

and nice of them was they lined up from left to right: juv/1st winter, ad female, ad male, zoom in on the pics and see if you can tell how i aged them........

so its looks as if the flock of waxwings in tamworth is a family, cool........

now we didnt stop too long here as people with camera's and scopes in a public road next to a school, not the best idea.....

so onwards,

CROXALL

a pair of oystercatcer were here and a flock of 9 REDSHANK, a bit of scanning along the bank with my scope got me onto my first RINGED PLOVER of the year, feeding in close company of 2 teal, a few goldeneye,tufted duck etc were here so we moved to another hide.

LITTLE EGRET

a little egret's head was pokeing up out of the tussuks

a pair of shelduck were floating about and a linnet flock was at the back of the pool in fields.

now to WHITEMORE HAYE

8 BARNICLE GOOSE were feeding away from the canada's and were quite wary, a coincidence they tured up at the same time of year as the 'wild' birds and were feeding in exacly the same spot..........

mind you i didnt even raise my camera to them

a couple of yellowhammers were heard.

but there was no sign of the pink footed geese,

we walked down the road to where tree sparrow ARE, not a single bird..........

we drove around the fields scanning the swans but nothing 'odd' came out.........

so now, a last bird to raise out spirits higher,

at a tip

only a GBBG was picked out so we quickly left for nearby stubbers green, and almost the 1st bird i dropped onto was this......

2nd winter ICELAND GULL, a very bleached bird feeding up by the sailing club side, scope views were good and i was able to savour the bird unlike last time:

a wing stretch:

another birder arived and the iceland duly dissapeared, LOL

and that just about concludes my day out with martyn

and a special thanks to martyn for inviting my on his birding day out, the day was immensly enjoyed and i will have to buy you a couple when i can go to the pub

cheers mart

MB

BLOGGERS DAY OUT!

hey im the first to get this out
12/12/09.

richards and martyns take on the day can be viewed here soon, well maybe.(just click on respective name)

for me it was a bloody early get up, 6AM for me to get ready and have breakfast and all that usual stuff.

i was picked up by martyn at 7:15 and we were on our way to stubbers green.

we got out the car and walked towards the lake in FREEZING cold weather.it was really cold,a small flock of lapwing was flying around 'wheezing' in the cold conditions(even they had colds). we were soon joined by another birder from birdfourum,rob who was also waiting for the caspian. a female goosander flew over hinting at what was to came,soon after the gulls started pilleing onto the lake,but the first large gull we saw was up the top end of the lake by the sailing club, it was flying about but imidiatly looked good, we changed our position and the gull was on a boyd. it was the CASPIAN GULL(lifer 200),i was happy to have got my 200th lifer and i celerbrated by,well, by looking at the caspian. here's a film in low mouring light.

and a GBBG

this video shows a few caspian features,eg the long straw coloured legs,protruding breast,small head and dark eye,in flight it was also easily identifiable,with its broken tail band with almost aall black primarys with black running to its elbow,and as the bird shown just 15 mins into the trip it was a great start.

also here was a load of common gulls(10c)

after some time looking for a yellow leg failed but 13 greater black backs were nice to see as was about 8 goosander(including fly overs) and a little grebe. not much later we were joined by richard and he got a few pics of the caspian, more scanning of the flock produced just the usual species.then the pagers started bleeping away,'90 pink footed goose over uttoxeter with a bewicks on the lake' '100 pink foots over ingestre' '85 pink foots over berry hill fields'

so, time to head north..........

...... to chasewater

we pulled into the car park in search of an adult med gull, we walked to the lake( keep calling it a lake cause i cant spell resivior) scanned the gulls and mart said got the med gull,it wasent long before i was on a crisp,beatiful,white winged mediterranian gull,a stunner of a gull,with its blood red bill and legs glowwing in the sunshine(yes it was sunny).

so how about that beauty,what about this tired film of it yawning,lazy thing.

we spent some time scanning the lake for anything,but then right in the distance,just above the horizon we saw........

.....NOTHING absolutly nothing

well anyway back to the med gull,what a beutiful looking bird they are,they always raise you spirits everytime you see one:

we then decided to check the south shore,a big raft of goldeneye was diving just offshore,and martyn pointed out a few shovler and gadwall forther out on the lake,and as upton warren doesent hold goldeneye too oftern i decided to take the opp to get some pics and films:

a good count of 56 great c grebes were out on the water.

richard wanted to get the whinchat at tamworth and i did too (secretly) so after a bit we carried on to tameside NR.

well this was the easiest of the lot to get,it was simple. we parked up,crossed the road up the bank and there it was, im not kidding it was that easy. but saying this the bird did fly around a lot,but then remained perched on a twig or a tree for quite long periods of time. this site loks amazing, the stuff you could imagine turning up there would make your mouth water,and all this in the centre of tamworth next to a main road bordered by house, unbelievable. and although the lake was quite small there were a good range of waterbirds,13 lapwing,3 snipe,8 wigeon and 4 gadwal,as well as 2 chiffchaff. why cant it be like this on lickhill(although lickhill has a few suprises,see next post),

(its on the twig in the centre if your wondering)

after a very enjoyable time with the whinchat we decided to go looking for the smew at fishers mill.but to put it short,we dipped, after a seeingly very long walk we reached the pits,to be honest the habitat was and looked amazing,no wonder the glossy ibis(s) decided to tur up here,it looked very mediteranian(if you subtract the very muddy paths), goldeneye seemed to be everywhere,with 10c noted on the lakes, on the northermost lake 2 redshank were feeding and 4 shelduck were resting,between 2 lakes in scrubby areas were a pair of stonechat.this compleating the pair of 'common' chats in a day. they preformed superbly and for once i looked more at these birds than at the lake:

a common gull was seen to land with a few black heads,on the way back martyn pisshed out a chiffchaff,which shown quite well, a bullfinch was heard(one was seen and heard briefly and the way down as was treecreeper), so now onwards on upwards,driving through prime merlin habitat(non were seen) we stumbled on a small flock of only 190!!! mute swan. we pulled over and had a quick scan though,but no wild swans were seen :(

croxall pool was our next destination,and in my terms it was a great desision. this was only to be a quick in and out stop but a quite big flock of ducks up the far end got us investigating, half way up the path we stopped and scanned.i was scanning a flock of wigeon and tufties and then i panned onto a small goose. PINK FOOTED GOOSE i calmly said. the others quickly got onto it and i was praised by my discovery. and with the big movement of pink feet over this area earlier this bird was WILD!! even martyn said it was wild(could i please have it in writing as its not oftern you say a goose on its own is wild) this bird proberbly has the best credentials to be a wild bird so im happy.

throughout the time the bird was watched it was wary of the canadian geese giving it even better credentials.

but it wasent long and the bird done this:

it flew north and wasent seen again.this was the ONLY bird i saw before anybody else over the whole trip,so i am very happy with it. but here it was not only the pink footed goose, there was also a huge winter flock of 33 redshank,33 redshank,thats an amazing total for winter in the middle of stafordshire.the usual ducks were presant including 8 goldeneye 8 wigeon but a female pintail was a bonous.

a check of a lake not far from here didnt produce much but a little egret flew over and there was 2 shelduck, in the surrounding fields was a flock of fieldfare/redwing and also a load of goldfinch.

then it was back to chasewater for the gull roost from the south shore,by this time my scope was useless and i relied on martyns and richards scopes to look through,the adult med gull was again picked up quite quickly, the roost size was huge but was still increasing,i estimated about 10000 birds rooseted on the lake,proberbly more:

the flock covered the res. from side to side, 3 yellow legged gulls were picked out by martyn but apart from a couple of possibles we failed to locate the caspian gulls. even without any 'white wingers' or caspains the sheer spectacle of that amount of gulls is a fitting end to any day..

what a blast of a day today was,with great company and great birds, so all i can say is.....

whens the next one?

thks to martyn and richard for the invite

MB