ANOTHER QUICKY

19/12/09
a quick early mourning visit to lickhill produced a flyover flock of 4 teal which is a site first,also a distant flock of 60c lapwing and an imense flock of 80c cormorant flew north

at earlswood later in the day had a flock of 6 bullfinch in the snowy garden also pished out 2 goldcrests,a nuthatch was seen as was 3 coal tits in a tit flock

MB

THE BIRD AWARDS '09'

have seen a few bloggers have already beaten me to this, but mine is in a different format.

this past year i have gone from, well theres no other way to put it, a nobody in the birding world to a birder known to a few birders, i have ammased many friends over the last year and i an superbly gratefull to the people who have guided my though this year(special mentions at end of post)

so here it is the 'BIRD AWARDS 09'

2009 has been an amazing year for me, with many lifers and very few 'dip outs'. i dont think i mentioned it on the blog before but my new years resolution last year was to reach 200 on my life list, and i did, thanks to a 3w CASPIAN GULL at stubbers green(12/12).

the title of rarest bird of the year goes to: the 1st winter GLOSSY IBIS at grimley(6/12) although been closely followed by the flock of 4 CATTLE EGRETS at slimbridge(3/10)

the best preformance by a bird this year goes to: SABINE'S GULL at upton warren(22/8, 24/8, 26/8, 29/8),a very unprecidented long stay by a rare bird, easilly one of the best birds this year.

best preformance by a lifer: 6 BLACK TERN at upton warren(24/8), these birds showed down to 2/3 metres on the sailing pool a well overdue bogey bird.

rarest self found bird: although tough to call i think the COMMON CRANE near stourton (16/10),this bird just edges out the NIGHTINGALE on lickhill, both being regional raretys.

most common scarcity: believe it or not this year i found no less than 3 worcester RED KITES,one over my nans house which was seen 3 minuites after a hobby(15/5), one over lickhill(7/6) this perticular bird was tracked up from the malverns to lickhill(presuming its the same bird) and my most recent record of an immature bird(13/12) again over lickhill

BUT here is the BIG one, the BEST bird of 2009: drum role please, dom,dom,dom,dom,dom........... 20 WAXWINGS at hagley worcester on 31/1, my first lifer for the year and they preformed mega well, showing down to a few metres and literally on the bonnet of the car, luckilly the flock hung around just long enough for 8 birders to connect,giving stunning views, self found lifer after trying (and dipping) 7 previous times on other birds, these birds were discovered while trying to twitch a flock of 170 at brownhills.

so there you go, my best birds of 2009,

and lastly i would like to thanks everybody who has followed or read my blog over the last year, from starting my blog only a year ago in november 2008 it was from humble beginings but now being hugely grateful i have 31 followers to this blog and it is nice to know im doing something right,

thanks for all the comments guys: keep it up

and very lastly, i have a few people to personally thank, foremost the worcester county recorder brian stretch who has kept me updated on the bird news in worcester and on occasions further afield,
matt griffiths, for all the help he has given me on the earlswood area and for the occasional tip off of an unusuall bird he has seen or knows about.
and lastly for my fellow bloggers, thanks for shareing your bird sightings for us all to enjoy, its one of the main reasons i follow blogging so much, extra special thanks to martyn yapp, richard powell and kay donaghy for the invite to the bloggers day out which was immensly enjoyed.

so thnaks all, one on me(thats 2 i owe you matt) cheers

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY AND A HAPPY(and bird filled) NEW YEAR

just hopefully this forthcomming year can be almost as good as last year
MB

A QUICKY

13/12/09 continued

martyn dropped my a text saying that he had crossbill's up at tripley so after ages of waiting i finally get my dad out at 2:30. my hopes wernt high as from personal experiance i know that finches become less active after 2 in winter, but as we pulled up,it was totally differnt, the crossbills were calling, we heard 3 birds calling but failed to locate them anywhere despite extensive searching. after a bit we dropped down onto the severn and quickly located the flock of 16 mandarin,i then took some videos through my bins(didnt want to lug my scope down, anyway its only mandarins)

after a few videos we climbed the bank to view the reseviour (still cant bloody spell it) and then 4 more mandarin flew in bunking the total up to 20(11 drake,9 duck),but as usual the lake was totaly devoid of birds but a goosander(f) flew over, a grey heron give superb views on the small pool and there was a grand total of 6 g c grebe.

MB

ANOTHER PAIR OF TITS!

13/12/09
what was just ment to be an hour check of lickhill turned into 3 hours of constant birding,i left for the vismig point,i placed my scope down and a cormorant was flying upriver but there was another bird coming in over the field,i quickly locked onto it and it was yet another RED KITE. the second site record this year and my 3rd worcester kite this year,i grabbed my camera from my pocket and put it to my bins,i then got a distant,out of focus video of the bird as it flew upriver:

sure the detail isnt good but just by the jizz you can tell its a kite,look hard and you can see a long tail and the typical red kite flight is shown, unfortunatly the bird didnt stay and soon headed off,i sprinted while fully laden with scope and bins upriver but the bird wasent relocated,

although this hovering ketrel was a bonus:

so a little excited from this dicovery i headed home via the lickhill conifer wood. a caravan had a few feeders out with a lot of activity so i stopped and had a look,a nuthatch was in the tree behind me and the usual birds were on the feeders, blue,great coal tit as well as a roving LTT flock, then a'pee-choo' call got me excited MARSH TIT. a bit of ferantic scanning produced a 'parus' tit but the views were brief therefore i didnt want to rule out willow yet. the bird flew landing at the base of an oak tree,showing it lacked a pale secondary patch and had a glossy cap but the bird was faceing away so the chin patch was invisible. the owner of the feeder caravan asked what i was looking at and i replied marsh tit,i offered a look though my scope and he(being a newby birder) tentativly agreed.he said that the bird had been visiting the feeders for the last few days so now i only hope it stops for the winter

he then told me of a report that a fisherman saw 2 red kites over lickhill, but he didnt believe him but only when i told him about my kite did he start to believe the record was real.

so then i spent 2 hours trying to get a film or the tit to confirm its ID, the bird was later joined by another bird and they both shown together.so after 2 hours this is the final result:

a kingfisher was on the kingfisher pool again but no photos were taken,also a very brief view of a crake sp, almost certainly a WATER RAIL but it dissapeared before i could see it well. if confirmed this would be the 1st site record,

a bullfinch also heard calling

then a txt from martyn started a whole new story(not 2nite,will finish 2moz)

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