PIED WHEATEAR!

26/10/11

As i have already hinted at, As a planned trip to Gloucestershire was already in place, it was a remarkable stroke of luck when a decently rare bird was found nearby!

So after our ounting to the Capital of plastic birds we headed further down the A38 to a place beside the severn estury

Oldbury on severn

The sailing club was nestled n the banks of the river in quite pleasant surroundings, flat open ground, mudflats stretching far into the river, just north of the the Severn bridges in the distance, and looking north to a Power station,

We walked down to the crowd, and i soon saw the bird, a Superb PIED WHEATEAR feeding atop the roof of the sailing club building.

A Gathering of people was expected, can you spot yourself??

The bird was constantly active, but sometimes stopped and stood still, enabling me to get some photo's:

For me, one of the standout features was the tail pattern,(video grab below) which was obvious even to someone with very limited 'wheatear experiance'. with Northern and Isabelline wheatear being the only others i have seen. But the 'grey' ish tone was also quite outstanding too, I dont class myself as being particuarly good at 'feather detail' Id, being better at Looking at the 'whole' bird, but i did noticed the primary projection was really long! and the bird became quite distinctive, even when a female Northern WHEATEAR decided to join it.

Sometimes the bird would drop down onto the ground and give superb views, often less than 30ft away! However, when on the ground, it was even more active than on the roof, and with the increasing bufferty wind, it became harder to gain decent photo's/Video's

However, it wasnt just the Wheatear on show, as mentioned, there was also a 'northern'

A stunning female MERLIN flew through over the top of the sailing club and onto the estury where it decided to have a chase of a Redshank, It flew up the channel behind us, giving stunning views and flew further up and being lost to view, still chasing the Redshank!

A sinlge Rock Pipit was here also, A scattering of Dunlin on the shore, and a Grey wagtail and a Common Gull flew over, we decided to leave just as the rain was about to hit, lucky we left at the time we did, because it rained heavilly!

A happy twitcher :) Rare bird showing amazingly, nice light (untill the rain) and Non of the crowd being dickheads, what more can you ask for?

MB