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
3 comments:
WOW! Its reports like this thats made me wanna start patch birding, the video of the Marsh tit is fantastic, I still can't believe your only 14 when I was your age I couldn't tell a Marsh from a Willow!
Me neither, wish I started serious birding in my early teens.
Keep up the good birding :-)
spent a lot of time learning the ID features and calls of both species, so nice to know it pays off when in the field.
i was very proud of the marsh tit video,well i should be after waiting 2 hours to get that footage in freezing cold conditions.
patch birding can be a bugger,but is so rewarding when you get something odd on 'your' patch
well worth the effort in the long term
MB
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