Me and the 'Gornal birder once agian decided to check out our 'secret' South Staffs site in the vain hope of finding LesserPeckers, however, in 4 hours within the wood, we failed to even come close to finding one, despite checking all the 'regular' area's.
However, we quickly located a Great-Spotted Woodpecker nest, and one of the young was showing well at the nest enterance, constantly calling to its parents.
The advantages of having a scope truily reveal themselves when watching a nest, as it allows you to get good views and photos from a sensible distance away!
A check at the Owly roosts gave us a single Little Owl, however, the Tawney Owl was off its perch, so therefore (as expected) in a nest somewhere.
However, we were suprised when i heard a familiar song from one of the area's we dont usually 'work', and soon after, i had found the source of the singing.
A stunning male PIED FLYCATCHER!
I have never seen one (nor heard of one) at this location before, so it was a great suprise, in what is, and area i do with semi-regularity!
The bird was initially singing from the canopy, but soon dropped down into head height bushes, giving great views, it even stayed still long enough for me to get some Footage and photos.
As said, the bird spent alot of its time in the canopy, where it would sit motionless, untill suddenly taking flight in a short loop to catch a fly in standard Flycatcher behaviour
At the points it was high in the tree it was quite awkward to view from the track, and sometimes the bird became elusive as it moved between the leaves which are now emerging thickly in trees, but occasionally it would appear on a perch in view, and we were able to see this stunnning pied summer visitor.
While on our journey through the wood, we also found many Nuthatch nest, a few of which had chicks calling inside.
MB
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