Thrashing Warwickshire- Hume's Warbler, Waterbirds and a Sparrow

16/02/14
With the sun shining, and spring truly been in the air i was getting a little worried. All of our wintering birds would soon be getting an urge to head back north to their breeding grounds, and time was fast running out to find them!
With that in mind, the decision to head to one of the bigger of the regions reservoirs was taken!

It has been such a long time since i had visited Draycote Water, it has been rather 'quiet' for a very long period but this winter it really has pulled in a few goodies!

Heading along the M42 it would have been rude to have not dropped into Hopwood on the way over, and the GREAT GREY SHRIKE was soon located feeding in its usual spot near the fenceline, distant as ever.

Not too much longer after, we were pulling into the car park atop the hill overlooking the huge expanse of open water that is Draycote. Actually it was almost the exact spot that we parked on my very first visit! Much to my approval however, the weather was far nicer, and not freezing cold as you expect with this place, and soon i was walking around to Rainbow corner in bright sunshine!

It was while scanning a large flock of Tufted Duck and Goldeneye from on of the fishermans car parks i picked up a small, pale duck at the back of the flock. A few seconds after and it was in my scope, and i was able to confirm that i was watching the rather pretty 1st winter male LONG-TAILED DUCK in the distance.

Moving a little further around, we were treated to great views of a few of the large numbers of Goldeneye, many of which were displaying and calling loudly from very close in to the shore, regardless of the huge numbers of walkers and screaming children! What stunning ducks!

Walking even further around, we were soon adjacent to the LONG-TAILED DUCK, and we were treated to absolutely stunning views of this seaduck as it happily swam about with the Tufted Ducks and Coots! Surreal!

As regular readers will know, my previous experience of 'LTD' as they are affectionately initialised to, was of a female bird which was so far away it was nothing more than a dot in the scope, so to have one this close was amazing, and i truly savoured every second!

Walking a little bit further a single bird sitting atop the hedgeline proved to be a TREE SPARROW! A bird that is now sadly very rare within my home county of Worcester, and therefore it was great to catch up with one of these stunning red-heads! It sat up on the hedge for a minute or so before it flew off into the adjacent fields! It really is hard to imagine that i used to get this species in my urban garden just outside Dudley! How long ago that seems now, as now i perhaps only see a couple of these birds a year!

With this corner of the reservoir being very productive, i was reluctant to leave, but soon we headed off around onto Farbourgh bank, and about half way along a small flock of Goldeneye appeared, and while scanning them as they flew in a 'white' duck was tagging along with them. I was shouting out SMEW as a stunning looking adult drake flew in, which was greeted by some odd looks from some walkers by, but luckily the bird then went onto drop onto the water just in front of us!

A little bit of swimming.

Followed by a little bit of a stretch

And then one of the motorboats from the sailing club approached, and soon after sent the bird flying a long distant to the north shore of Toft bay!

For the sake of complete-ness, we continued up the bank until the point where we could scan into Toft bay distantly, the Smew was located with the same flock of Goldeneye, and further scanning revealed the last 'target' of the day when the GREAT-NORTHERN DIVER swam across, preened and flapped on the far side of the bay. Having had decent views of many 'Great- Northerns' this year, i chose to turn back to the car.

With a fair bit of daylight still left, we chose to drive over to Coleshill to get some views of the HUME'S WARBLER, which was showing well upon arrival, meaning i could properly study its plumage. I later moved up to the road bridge where i was treated to amazing views of this stunning Leaf Warbler as it fed in tree's down to about 15ft in front of me, where i tried to get some digi-binned pictures before it dropped into denser vegetation! 

While standing here, the similarly long staying Siberian Chiffchaff was calling, and also showing briefly in tree's on the opposite side of the road, further adding to the warbler interest of the site! And even more than that, as i was trying to relocate either of the warblers a small flock of 9 Redpoll flew in and landed upon a silver birch in the centre of the clearing, and when i got on them, was struck by 4 very bright, icy couloured Mealy Redpolls! A little further scrutiny revealed each of those 'pale' 4 also had nice white wing bars. One in particular was particularly pale, and really was a looker! We stuck around until the light started to fade, but both warblers refused to show, but the Redpoll's stayed on view, but somewhat more distantly.

What a day in the midlands! As i have said before, i can't remember many winters where birding has been this good around the midlands, with decent birds present all over the place! Lets hope it continues into the spring, summer and autumn!
MB

Excellent Midlands birding!

5/01/14

Remember how in the last post i said i saw some pale looking Redpoll's with a Goldfinch flock on the Golf Course at Lineholt?

Well it turns out that an hour or so after we left, a local birder went on to find a stunning flock of Mealy Redpoll!

I wonder!

Anyway, i returned the next day, and i was treated to decent views of them as they fed in the tops of birch tree's along the southern edge of the Golf course. It was hard to estimate numbers in some very dense tree's, but while i was there a flock of 25 Redpoll were present, including at least 18 MEALY REDPOLL!

Most were of the 'greyish' kind, but there were also around 5 really stunning pale birds (Check out the 2nd bird in the video!).

Looking into the setting sun made it hard to get anything other than silhouetted or 'darker than real life' photos, but as usual i tried!

8/01/14

My first visit to Sheepwash this year was rewarded with a good flock of 35 Goosander. More impressive though in my opinion was the 29 Tufted Duck, one of my highest counts from the site! 2 Shoveler and 16 Pochard completed the list of 'highlights'.

I was shocked by the lack of Pochard on the lake, as usually by this time of year the flock is nearing 40! Sadly, as shown by the recent WeBS survey, it seems as if numbers of this red-headed diving duck have declined hugely in the UK. Reasons for this are fairly clear, and perhaps more-so this winter. Mild winter temperatures throughout Europe means that many of our winter species don't have to travel as far to reach a reasonable winter climate, and many of 'our' birds are now regularly wintering on the continent.

9/01/14

With the year list off to a flying start, Neil Duggan again offered a morning out birding in Staffordshire and north Birmingham. Our reasoning?

A seaduck that continues to elude me, as well as a whole host of excellent species!

Aqualate mere was playing host to a good number of ducks, so arriving at dawn we took the relativly easy tack towards the hide. While walking down the fenceline however it became clear we were quickly going to regret our decision, the boardwalk was under 2 ft of water!

Reluctantly we continued walking, we had come to far not to search! And within a short distance, both of us and our boots were inundated with water. Even my wellies were not enough to keep my toes from getting wet!

Our suffering was rewarded along the boardwalk when 2 WILLOW TIT were feeding along the hedgeline feeding and calling. After a few seconds watching, we continued on. 

The Mere was very full of water, but our task had become even harder than thought!

Every one of the ducks were on the very far side of the lake, and because of that were very hard to view. For an hour we scanned, in which Neil expertly picked out a drake Pintail (which i couldn't pick up until much later), but neither of our target species were showing!

With time passing on, and with us both needing to be in Dudley by 2, we took the decision to move on, and we were soon pulling off onto the backroad at Gailey. Again our confidence was taken from us when we were told out main target had flown out half and hour or so before! Not only that, a seriously heavy rainstorm then hit, and as well as being birdless, we were now soaked from head to toe!

Luckily, the GREAT-NORTHERN DIVER was showing as we scanned and sheltered from the sailing buildings. The weather was truly awful by now, and here is a photo of the Diver to give you the idea!

We chose that as our time to leave. Not much longer after that, we were pulling into Engine lane, just outside Brownhills where the GLOSSY IBIS from had reappeared from the previous year was currently residing!

The bird wasn't too hard to locate, and was showing very well in the 2nd paddock, feeding around the feet of the horses and in the deep mud!

It was somewhat surreal to think that the bird, originating from somewhere on the Iberian Peninsular had somehow found its way to rainy, and somewhat dreary Brownhills, and then chose to spent the winter there!

I can tell you, if i had wings, Brownhills would certainly not be my first choice of Winter home!

With Stubbers Green being on the way home, it would have been rude not to have a look. And a few minutes after, we were pulling up adjacent to the pools. Worryingly, there were very few gulls present throughout our visit, with no more than 80 large gulls at a time. A adult YELLOW-LEGGED GULL dropped in briefly for a wash, but it was soon off out again to feed on the tip. Just after mid-day however, the visit was somewhat enlightened by the appearance of one of my favorite winter birds!

ICELAND GULL!

The great thing about Stubbers though, is as well as having great Gulls like this, you get really stonking views of them. Personally, these were probably the best views of an Iceland as i have had.

As well as being a very 'crisp' looking adult, what makes this bird more interesting is its life history! Every winter since it was in juvenile plumage, this bird has returned to North Birmingham, and i have managed to catch up with it in 2nd winter, 3rd winter, 4th winter and adult plumage's! It is great to think that this bird has found something it likes with the area. Maybe its the prominence of Landfill in the area? Or maybe its proximity to Chasewater to roost? Or even possibly the fact it just likes Walsall!  Whatever it may be, i'm very glad we have this bird returning year after year!

MB

Twitching with the Next Gen Birder's + Some days in between.

8/12/13

Having being part of the Next Generation Birders since its foundation last year has come with many bonuses, meeting like minded folk of a similar interest from around the country, nearby and also good dose's of banter, humor and information!

In fact, i have been part of it since before its foundation having also been part of the group since it's precursor 'Young Birders' which remained an outside public view group of young birders for its duration.

Back in early December, i received a message from two of the members of the group who were going up for the drake Baikal Teal near Southport and wondered if i wanted to join them. After a little planning i agreed, as the bird looked a good candidate for a wild bird.

So at an early hour in the morning, the 3 of us, Sean from Portland (our driver) and Espen from Hereford set the sat-nav for Marshside!

A few hours later, we found ourselves scanning thousands of Wigeon and Teal moving up the 'coast road' adjacent to the estuary looking over towards Blackpool tower. Pink-Footed Goose were flying around and calling everywhere, but our main focus was admittedly on the ducks. We located a since drake Pintail on the saltmarsh side of the road but our main target eluded us and negative news was emerging.

Oh no!

We walked a fair distance along the road until we saw the twitch on the seawall. From here there was lots of activity, hundreds of Golden Plover, Lapwing, Wigeon and Teal, with smaller numbers of Black-tailed Godwit, Dunlin and a single male Ruff.

In the distance i picked up a GREAT-WHITE EGRET, but when i say distant, i mean distant, but its yellow bill made it stand out quite well.

The crowd on the sea wall was becoming restless. Only 1 person had claimed the bird and that was a lot earlier. At this point it was somewhat surprising to see my two recent stalkers, Martyn (Now back into the Blogging scene) and Kay who had apparently 'missed' their turning for Cannock Chase and  turned up at Southport! Bit of an overshoot there!

Having been battered by rather heavy winds for only around 10 minutes, Martyn came up to me and proclaimed it had just been pagered as being seen on Marshside, where we had just walked from!

A mass exodus occurred as the scrum walked, jogged and ran back to Marshside.

A seemingly long walk had us arriving at as relatively small gathering of Twitchers scanning a flock of Wigeon (One of the flocks that were too distant from our earlier point of view) and were quickly guided onto the bird, which proved a little difficult to pick up at first glance, but soon, everyone settled down to enjoy this stunning Siberian duck.

No doubt absolutely shattered from its long flight, the bird spent all but around 20 seconds of the time we were watching it asleep. Drake BAIKAL TEAL must surely be one of the best looking of the worlds wildfowl, with that stunning black, green and yellow  head pattern and those stunning drooping orange back feathers.

After our fill, we bode farewell, but it would have been a shame to have not gotten a crowd shot, so we did.

15/12/13

A true failure of a twitch down to Severn Beach, the Desert Wheatear had left overnight, and a distant, flying silhouetted, no calling view of 3 Finches flying from the Saltmarsh were about as close as we got to the Twites, but there is no way i would claim them on that sort of view. A pair of Stonechats were about the only things about.

21/12/13

News of a GREAT-GREY SHRIKE emerged from Hopwood, and we duly headed over there, to get distant views of it perched in the field behind the first field from the road. Not at all good views, but my first in county Shrike so worth the effort for one of these wintertime specialties.

From here we did the roost at Bartley, which was very quiet, with no rare gulls despite a fairly large roost. The 2 long staying SCAUP (1W Drk + Fem) were compensation though for the freezing fingers and the dog crap on my Converse.

22/12/13

The next day we, (that being a selection of the Next Gen Birders) had planned to head up to the Mynd, but having returned from my birding foray the previous day the day plan changed somewhat! 

Yorkshire was the destination. Why? One of the very elite of Gulls. One of that band of 'ultra' Gulls which stand head and shoulders above the rest. Most of which live in the far north.

A band of Gull's so sexy that only the likes of Scarlett Johansson and Mila Kunis rival them. Yes folks! Really. That good!

So, having being picked up by James and Espen we headed over to the home of Matt, the voted chairman of  the NGB's and then set on our way to Patrington!

A big set back on the way up followed, when news came though that the bird WAS NOT present....

Errm, really not good!

However we failed to let our driver know in fear of turning back so we plowed on Patrington bound!

Just before Humber came into view a quick check of RBA revealed the bird to have been found somewhere near Spurn Point, no doubt feeding on one of the many Seal carcasses that would have been washed ashore following the Tidal Surge that destroyed the Eastern coastline.

Soon after it flew off westwards and arrived for the waiting crowds at Patrington.

We were soon parked and the walking began.

 Walking out to the water building and then overlooking the Humber we were led onto a bright white IVORY GULL sitting on the rocks! Awesome! Sadly, with the freezing and strong winds we struggled to see much more than just a completely white Gull as it sat preening on the rocks.

I must say though, i became distracted by the many thousands of waders that were present out on the mudflats! Being bad at estimating numbers i generally underestimate, so 100 Oystercatcher, 50 Grey Plover, 1000 Golden Plover, 1000 Knot, 1000 Dunlin, 300 Redshank, 40 Bar-Tailed Godwit and single figure numbers of Ringed Plover, Turnstone and Black-Tailed Godwit represent absolute minimums among a decent number of Lapwings!

Despite the IVORY GULL being stubborn, the crowd refused to  leave, and once everyone had passed the threshold of freezing (like the point when you would be seriously be considering a trip to the hospital for treatment of Hypothermia or missing body parts!) most took shelter behind the buildings.

It took a long time, but when it did everything came clear, and the IVORY GULL flew towards us, and the crowd fell silent. The bird just seemed to hang in the air above us for an age, seemingly in no rush to do anything. It teased us to a few low flypasts, but refused to land until the 4th circuit.

But when it did, it was straight onto a nice piece of rotting Mackerel.

Yummy!

After around 10 minutes feeding, and not doubt stinking of rotting fish, the Ivory Gull decided to reinstate its sexy status, and after a good drink, Off it flew back out to preen and wash on the Estuary. 

(Nearly done now folks, stick with it a little longer)

27/12/13

I dropped into Eyemore in an attempt to find a rare Worcestershire Crossbill, which failed quite miserably, with not even a Common Crossbill seen. So it was down onto Trimpley, where 12 Mandarin, 8 Goosander, 8 Tufted Duck and a Peregrine flew over.

28/12/13

Despite my failure the previous day, i quickly found the 3 TWO-BARRED CROSSBILL'S around Postemplain, which were calling occasionally and were seen in flight, but proving very elusive!

The Common Crossbills in the area though were showing well!

31/12/13

The last day of the year was taken up with a twitch for the Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll on the other side of Stourport. Sadly, i arrived about 30 Minutes to late, and following a 6 hour search i didn't see it. 5 MEALY REDPOLL were nice compensation, particularly a strikingly pale bird! Around 50 Lesser Redpoll were around, and a Yellowhammer and a Brambling were also seen.

And that was it folks! The end of 2013!

Next post will be my summary of 2013, so it will be a few days before it will be completed!

MB

Patch on fire!!!!!

20/02/11
with the school holidays i had decided to cram in as much birding as possible so on sunday i was out on the patch doing a walk to the gadwall lake, and back via the 2 woods
On the way down to the gadwall lake it was extremly quiet although a large flock of SISKIN in the lickhill birch wood took a bit of looking through, but when i didnt pick up anything different i left but would come back after to check it out...
The large flock of Reed Bunting was still showing well at the Gadwall lake with 11+ Birds noted as they all sat on a hawthorn a few metres from me.........
stunning birds.....
But with the rest of the patch being quiet i decided to head back to the Siskin flock and what a good desision that was....
ON walking towards the flcok o could imidiatly hear Redpoll 'chi-chi-chi' ing away at the tops of the trees, and i was amazed to see 20 Odd Redpoll feeding above me......
I started scanning and immidatly picked out 2 MEALY REDPOLL, very outstanding white birds, and looking stunning at the tops of the trees, As you would expect i stayed in the area for some time and after seeing lots of finches i heard a CROSSBILL!!!!!!!
It flew over in a basic South-north direction but as i was in a small clearing i only had the bird in my bins for about 7 seconds while it flew over but it never tried to land, However a patch first, spurred on i continued scanning the flocks of birds, A Ravern flew over, as did a Peregrine, 3 Treecreeper were feeding in the wood, and after getting my fill on the bird i decided to leave but as i reached the bottom floor of the wood ( the wood is on a slope) i saw 3 birds perched in a popular type tree at the edge of the wood, i couldnt pick out any detail on them through my bins so out came the scope again and having locked onto the birds, my jaw dropped!!!!

BRAMBLINGS!!!

Patch MEGA!!
2 male birds and a female,
having got a really crap video of the birds, i phoned my dad and he came down to take a look, but in the time he got there they dissapeared, but after 15 mins, 2 of the birds popped up in the same tree and i took some footage a little bit better than the last one, and just to prove there was bramblings that day here is the video...

Highlights:

3 BRAMBLING

1 CROSSBILL

2 MEALY REDPOLL

20c Lesser Redpoll

60c Siskin

20c goldfinch

10c chaffinch

11+ Reed bunt

MB

Patch update...

As regular readers of this blog will know is that a place that is very party of my birding lifestyle is my local patch,it is an area of habitats that include wet woodland,grassland,farmland,woodland,marsh,reedbed,small lakes, a small area of urbanness, and a few generally scrubby area's, that despite being well off the birding radar oftern has its supprises, that over the 8 years i have been birding the place i have clocked 1000+ hours here, Recording 127 Species of bird, the last 2 years being particually noteworthy due to me 'working' the site more,
The patch has gradually increases in size, from a single woodland to a whole strech of the river severn, to include a wider range of habitats, this has lead to my current sized patch to take nearly 5 hours to work thourghly, but i have many 'short walks' where i decided to walk to a certain area, check it out, then walk back.
In the 2nd half of 2010 the patch was very much abandonned, so the usual warbler counts i do never took place. the only day i have for patching is sunday, and when year 11 hit me, it was full of homework and coursework, and most of the time i was generally too tired to get out. but when i finally got back to the patch in mid december, i was immidiatly overtook by patch birding, finding a WHOOPER SWAN on the river, a self found bird, quickly followed by a stunning drake SMEW, which amazingly i also found, the supporting cast here though was amazing, 6+ Goldeneye, 30+ goosander, at least 15 tufted duck (an amazing patch rarity ( only 6 birds previous(2 records), a flock of 5 little grebe, common gull and a pair of Dipper, 4 patch firsts in 2 weeks!!!!, even though i had neglected the patch for almost 6 months!!!!
Unfortunatly, i wont be able to work the patch as much as i used to for many reasons, but have promised to myself that i will get down to the patch every 2 weeks, even if to only visit one location, just to see what is about, Patch birding is THE most furfilling type of birding, finding an odd bird on your patch means more than traverling 400 miles to twitch a gull (no matter how manky it is), finding a decent bird on your doorstep is just so much better, even if it is common 10 miles away, Patch birding always has the edge..
So my most recent patch exploit.
30/01/11
I decided to walk to the Gadwall lake, just to see if the bird for which this lake has this name had returned, but when getting to the lake it was frozen over, so no chance, but i was soon standing there scopeing the Reed bunting, i must say, a bird i overlook elsewhere, but due to being on the patch i decided to stop and watch. the light was stunning, and i got lost in time, and 1 1/2 hours later, i had realised i had watch a bird for that long, well tbh it wasnt one bird, it was 12, and with reed bunting being unusual on the patch (despite in the last 2 years having 30+ flocks and potential breeding birds), it has became a lot more common in the last 2 years, possibly due to the fact of the patch size increase.

Needless to say, i actually have never really spent time just watching a single type of bird (unless it is particuarly special), but i was engrosed in the Buntings behaiour, watching mutual preening, and even at one point a male and a female bird perched on opposite stems, and touched beaks, almosts as if the birds were giving a kiss, i certainly had never seen this before but i found them quite charming birds, they have gone up a few levels in my 'good' birds list!!!

After this long stint watching the buntings i headed home, but it was only when i got too the Moorhall Wood (aka balckcap wood), i quickly found a flock of 20 Lesser redpoll, and on sifting through the birds, One jumped out at me, Larger and frostier, white wing bars and only a brown tinge on the back, MEALY!!!

4th patch record. i dropped the legs on my tripod, and quickly aimed my scope at the birds, and without thinking i ripped back the velcro so i could access the focousing wheel, and the birds all took flight, flying towards the birch wood further along, but despite looking i never found the flock again..
Highlights:

1 MEALY REDPOLL

20 Lesser redpoll

13 REED BUNTING

8 Coal tit

1 Marsh tit

1 Kingfisher

1 Blackcap

3 Siskin

1 Treecreeper

it was also quite nice to see that both Wren and Goldcrest have survived the cold spell in numbers, with decent numbers noted of each...

Happy Patching

MB