June & July - The Upton Warren roundup

June & July 2014

With the grip of the summer doldrums in place, birding took a far more relaxing approach, and with that came a fair bit of local general wildlife watching, navigating across from our avian delights, to our inverts, and to our plantlife, and I rather enjoyed it.

Upton Warren I look as one of the most productive, and educational sites in Worcester, and what better to do during the quiet summer months than keep track of the breeding birds, and enthuse about them to locals and semi-interested day visitors!

The major news from this summer at Upton Warren has been the successful hatching, and subsequent raising of a massive 10 Shoveler chicks, the first time the species has bred at Upton Warren since 1947. A truly remarkable occurrence, and hopefully this years bumper success will promote breeding in future years.

It is still even possible to see these local superstars (which made local newspapers, radio shows and possibly even the local TV news) as I write this in the dying days of August. They may even stay around for the rest of the winter now?

As always, the first returning waders of the year are making an appearance, and Green Sandpipers were typically on time, with some spanking adults dropping in for extended stays on the flashes, often showing superbly from the hide. In the two 'J' months, I had a peak count of 10, but this increased further in August which will be covered in an upcoming post.

For the 3rd year running a ringed Common Sandpiper made an appearance for a few days, showing how site faithful some species can be, particularly waders!

And the first few Common Snipe started to appear in the channels adjacent to the hide at the flashes, typically showing well out in the open as migrant birds often do.

 A juvenile Ringed Plover dropped into the flashes in front of me one evening, which proved incredibly productive!

It could often be see within the same scope view as a number of Little Ringed Plover, but sadly all of these were raised elsewhere, with all the earlier chicks having been predated.

Wader wise my personal counts peaked at, Avocets- 45, Little Ringed Plovers-8 and Common Sands- 5 and up to 21 Curlew. Oystercatcher raised 4 chicks and Lapwing were also present, but Lapwing being quite scarce and hard to come by, but occasional counts of up to 30 were seen as the autumn flock built up.

Gulls have been high on the agenda, and there has been an almost continual presence of Mediterranean Gulls throughout the summer as a few 1st summer birds have been loitering around with the Black-headed Gulls. The Little Gull remained for some time also, but had disappeared by mid July.

Towards the end of July, I was lucky enough to locate the first juvenile 'Med' Gull of the year in the flashes roost, on the same evening as the Ringed Plover. The roost also held 2 2nd summer Common Gulls that night, so I certainly was kept entertained. 

Away from birds, it was a very poor year for Orchids around the site, with only 2/3 Bee Orchids flowering, and around 30c Common Spotted. Pyramidal was unfortunately not see this year, but it is quite normal for Orchids to flower in some years and not the next.

My undoubted butterfly highlight were 2 White-letter Hairstreaks that were present when I looked adjacent a small colony of them. A recent colonist to the reserve and a pleasure to see.

MB

Marloes and the Gann

27/05/14

Following on from a brilliant time on Skomer island, we then decided to check out some of the other birding sites on the peninsular around Marloes and Dale. This area is one of my favourite in Pembrokeshire, and it is always worthwhile for a check.

Marloes Mere was fairly hard going, and other than a few ducks, that being 4 Gadwall (which I believe may have been my first in Pembs!) and 3 Shoveler it was all a little 'samey'. No surprises here like I had last year! After giving the south end of the Mere a good grilling, we thought best to head off to a location that I always get exited about!

The Gann

And luckily, it proved much more interesting! After walking along the shingle ridge and reaching the far end, the first bird I saw was a Grey Plover, again, a first for Pembs for me, and not something I would expect to see here at the end of May!

A Little Egret and and Shelduck were also in attendance.

It was hard to believe the amount of 'damage' that had happened over the winter since my last visit. I think the extremely high tide made it look much worse than it was, but it was obvious that large areas of the shingle had been displaced, and the old 'exit stream' of the Pools had infact become an inflow! The shingle ridge was also much steeper than the gentle incline it was before, and it was clear that much of the shape of the wider bay had changed! The power of the sea!

Even during previous high tides spent here, I have never seen the saltmarsh covered adjacent to the Gann river, but with the tide and displaced shingle it was easily inundated even before the water reached its peak. In a way that was a blessing, as the rising tides pushed 3 Whimbrel and 5 Curlew out of the Channels, which then went on to pose for us on the dryer ground.

 With the family now calling, it was time to head back, and as we turned to walk away, a pair of Ringed Plover dropped in on the tideline a short distance away, before these too moved over onto the saltmarsh to roost.

MB

Skomer Island! Puffins, Owls and Seabirds!

27/05/14

Many of you will know my relationship with this small offshore island off the Pembrokeshire coast is dire!

And I truly mean DIRE!

I have been visiting Pembrokeshire, once, maybe twice every year for almost all of my recollectable life, and still, despite attempting almost every year, I have been unable to tread on the hallowed tuft that is the Island of Skomer. Many reasons across the years have prevented me, illness, weather, the boat being fully booked. But that changed this year! Despite arriving well before even the first boat, a long queue had already assembled, and a long wait followed, but eventually, despite arriving around 8:30, finally had our place secured on the 11am boat!

Now rather than one of my usual wordy posts, I think I'm going to spare you the waffle for the simple reason that every one of you who would read this knows the reason for my visit, ridiculous close views of Puffin, day flying Short-eared Owls and huge colonies of seabirds!

Having climbed the steps onto the island, and having walked slightly into the interior, you quickly notice a number of Bluebells lining the paths (And just about everything else if I'm honest), and following a short walk, a stunning Short-eared Owl was sitting up on a fence post among the carpet of blue.

In the distance, the huge Gannet colony on Grassholm could be viewed, with almost half of the island covered in shining Gannets and countless tons of guano.

After completing a circuit of the perimeter of the island, we made our way to the most famous breeding cliff on the island at 'The Wick', where, even despite my best efforts, I too became infactuated with some small, pied clownish birds bobbling their way along the clifftops.

The Puffins!

Now I've seen loads already on my walk around the island, and infact any sort of glance at the sea, even from the mainland revealed a huge number of thousands of Puffins.

The ones in the Wick though are rather special in that you can get within a few feet of them.....

Having had my fill, it was time to continue on, past the crowds, but via one of the best views on the island (in my opinion) where you look down into the Wick upon thousands of Puffin, Guillemot, Razorbill, Kittiwake etc, and right out into the Irish sea! Rather a stunning view!

Needless to say, this Puffin was rather happy he'd snagged this awesome piece of real-estate before the rest of the colony! 

We stopped in one of the small hides overlooking a tiny puddle of a pool, and it was covered with a good number of Gulls, Herring and LBBG were predominate, but Kittiwakes were dropping in very regularly to preen, and to collect mud for their nests on the cliff ledges.

This led to some rather stunning views!

A quick stop in the hide overlooking the larger pool near the farmhouse revealed a few waterbirds to add further interest, with a Shelduck family with 9 humbug chicks, a Shoveler and a Curlew, one of the only breeding pairs in Pembrokeshire!

Soon though, our time was up, and we returned to North Haven to be picked up on our boat, sailing out among the rafts of seabirds to return to the real world!

What a place!

MB

Sheepwash YLG

18/04/13

An afternoon after college visit to Sheepwash was rewarded by a cracker of a 2nd summer YELLOW-LEGGED GULL. I originally picked the bird out as 'interesting' on mantle shade from the opposite side of the pool, obviously paler than 'Graellsii' LBBG's which it was with, but also a shade or two darker than nearby Herring Gulls of nominate race. I rushed around the the viewpoint overlooking the rocks, and was pleased to see the bird still sitting there, and looking like a superb YLG!

Just look at that bill, an absolute beast of a bird.

At around 5pm the bird flew off, revealing it to be fairly distinctive in flight also, and very different to either Herring or LBBG. The bird was a very obvious Black tail band contrasting to white tail base and a nice 'saddle' contrasting to retained 1st year Secondarys and Primarys.

3 Shoveler were still 'hanging on', as were 5 Goosander (1 DRK). A Common Sandpiper was around the edges of the pool while the woods seemed to be heaving with Willow Warbler song

MB

Its been a long time!

It really has been such a long time since my last post, and am just dropping by to say that posting will again commence from now onwards as i am now mostly done towards my coursework, which has been one of my biggest inhibiting factors. Having just returned from a birthday weekend away with 'The Girlfriend' it seems like a good time to fill in the gaps of the last month!

21/02/12

Talking about the Girlfriend, all the way back in February we went for a walk at Arrow Valley Lake as i knew that Goosanders had been seen there recently, and we quickly located 13 of these stunning ducks, including 7 drakes. 15 Tufted Duck were also around the lake, and a Reed Bunting was seen near the visitor center. We were also able to get some great close up views of BHG's, including a few nicely marked 1w birds!

A couple of Tufties were showing very closely nearby!

27/02/13

I again went for a walk to look for LSW in a woodland to no reward, i'm really struggling to catch up with them this year! A stunning male BRAMBLING was still showing, starting too acquire some aspects of summer plumage.

2 Green Woodpecker were showing well on some short cut grass.

 And i was happy to see that both of the resident pair of Tawney Owl were out on top of their stump.

28/02/13

A visit to sheepwash was fairly productive, 37 Goosanders was a very good count, one of my highest of the winter infact, as was 47 Pochard. 8 Shoveler were still present, and the Tuftie flock numbered 20. 30 Linnet were still up on the 'mound' proving as flighty as always. 5 Lesser Redpoll were showing well in the wooded bits.

1/03/13

Roost birding at Bartley revealed a Yellow-legged Gull, but i manadged to miss the Caspian that was being watched from the dam.

2/03/13

A quick twitchy stop into Bittel reveled that the stunning adult drake SMEW was still present, choosing to reside in the furthest corner possible from the viewpoint on the Bittel farm Causeway. The Smew was keeping company with a single female Goldeneye, while a flock of 10 Goosanders were also present.

3/03/13

A patch visit was fairly uneventful bar 2 Snipe which flew over my head at Blackstone.

6/03/13

Another visit for LesserPecker and again drew a blank. I have been spending regular 3-4 hours in this woodland frequently and still am failing to see them. 4 BRAMBLING were still around, as was a Peregrine and the Tawney Owl was perched up on the top of the tree in beautiful sunlight, highlighting those gorgeous rufous tones.

A Nuthatch was showing down to 6ft on some food that had been put out.

13/03/13

Another failure to find LSW. A male and a female BRAMBLING were still near to the feeders. The Tawney was still out, and the Peregrine was still in residence. A small flock of 10 Siskin were flighty.

14/03/13

Sheepwash was doing well at retaining the Shoveler flock, as there was now 9 birds, including 3 birds showing very well adjacent to the path. 13 Goosanders were widely spread across the pool, but the Pochard flock had halved to 20 birds. A Kingfisher did a flypast along the river.

15/03/13

I do love my roosts. Again i visited Bartley as a Med Gull had been roosting regularly  Neil Duggan was also in the area and dropped in also. It was like a big birders meet up as 8 birders were present, the most i have ever seen at the location. Eventually the stunner of an adult MEDITERRANEAN GULL was located while suffering the freezing wind. For me however, the highlight goes to a pair of Peregrine which shown very well off the dam, apparently a very rare bird at Bartley, as they hunted the roosting Gulls. A Curlew flew off as the Peregrines entered.

16/03/13

I have a fondness for Grimely due to its superb looking habitat, and with waders starting on the move it seemed like a logical choice. We first dropped into the Holt flashes, where a flock of 75+ Wigeon were feeding, along with a fair few Lapwing and two Oystercatchers. I picked up two GREEN SANDPIPERS which were either migrants or some of the wintering birds. Moving onto the Camp lane pits we added a drake Pintail and a small flock of 6 Curlew, 2 Redshank were on the flooded middle section as were 2 Oystercatcher.

Following this we dropped into Upton Warren where i quickly got the 14 Avocet. 3 OYC flew north and 1 Curlew was showing. 3 Chiffchaffs were my first 'spring' birds and 2 Water Rail shown. A single 1w Common Gull dropped in among the roosting Gulls.

17/03/13

I struck lucky on patch with 2 Greylag Goose, an insane patch rarity. I have only previously had fly overs but these two birds were 'decked' and were showing on the Lickhill pool.

  (You can see both birds in this photo, even if only a tiny portion of the 2nd birds head)

And now i can get into the more 'juicy' recent birds in my posts following this,

MB

Sheepwash has Ducks!

14/02/13
Sheepwash has been doing fairly well for ducks recently, and that only continued today! The Goosander flock was up to its 'normal' winter heights, with a stunning 34 birds on both the Pumphouse and Johns lane fishing pools. In the flock was 15 stunning drakes. I cant say for others, but Goosanders must be some of the most stunning Ducks we have in the country, and to see large numbers on what can only be described as an urban pond is just amazing.
Here is just a small number of the flock: (Note the Shoveler's photo-bombing the flock)

Additionally, the Shoveler flock was still present, and today i counted 7 birds, most of which were still feeding in the NW corner. A flock of 44 Pochard was plastered around the 'Dunlin' Island and were giving awesome views. On both the Fishing Pool and Pumphouse pool a total of 15 Tufted Duck were showing, which is a slight increase to late.

Moving onto the opposite side of the canel, a flock of 30c Chaffinch was showing in trees adjacent to the mound, however there weren't any Bramblings among them. Actually atop the mound, the flock of 40c Linnet was still showing, but once again i failed to locate any Twite or Snow Buntings among them.

One day

MB

Duck movements

23/01/13

Late January often see's the start to abit of duck movement around the region, and combined with some icy weather, you often get some surprises in odd locations.
The icy conditions had increased duck numbers at Sheepwash Urban Park, highlighted by a awesome flock of 16 Shoveler! This is by far the most i have ever seen here, having only previously seen a maximum of 2! Two thirds of the flock were feeding close to the bank, giving excellent views as the 'swirled' with a flock of Mallard

2 Teal were feeding on the bank below us before moving over to the muddy 'spit', however, these are a wintering pair, and not part of a cold weather influx.

40c Pochard were roosting on the edges of the 'Dunlin' Island. A check of both the Chemical Pool and the Mound were uneventfull, as was the marshy pools. However, on crossing the Tame bridge, i looked down and staring right back at me was a COMMON SNIPE stood motionless in the mud on the edge of the river. With the bird being no more than 20ft from where i was standing, i was treated to some awesome views.

A nice little winter visit. A nice flock of Shoveler, Pochard, as well as Teal and a Snipe equal a decent visit to the park!

MB

Some short ones.

17/11/12
An early morning visit to the patch was very quiet, and the only bird of note was a single female Goosander whcih flew north upriver.
Following this i headed down to the Birders Store, and picked up my new pair of bins. And following this we then popped to Grimley, and the first bird i locked onto with the new bins was a Little Egret- Not a bad way to start my 'Bin list'. A small flock of 20c Meadow Pipits were flying around. Ducks were represented by 10c Shovler, 10c Pochard and more Tufted's.
Later in the Evening, we dropped into Earlswood Lakes, where 2 Shoveler, a Grey Wagtail and 2 Goldcrest were the highlights.
18/11/12
The next day, i went for a walk out in Wirehill Woods, Redditch with 'The Girlfriend', and proberbly produced the bird of the weekend when a CROSSBILL flew east over the wood 'glipping' as it went.

19/11/12
The day following that, me and the 'Gornal Birder' went to Sheepwash, and the highlight was by far the building up of the regular Goosander flock, of which there were 16 Today, 3 of which were drakes, 5 Teal (2m) were also on show, as were 11 Pochard. A adult Great Black Backed Gull landed in the centre of the pool for some time.

24/11/12
A visit to the patch early morning revealed a build up of a Chaffinch flock, of which there was 30+ feeding in a small area of flooded woodland, giving me hope that it may attract a Brambling onto the patch at some point! 5 Lesser Redpoll were feeding on a birch tree, with an additional one (a male) on my garden feeders.
At 10pm, we were driving past a flooded field on the patch, and we could see a flock of ducks in the headlights, and i was quite suprised to see a drake Mandarin feeding with them!

24/11/12
A late evening visit to Upton Warren Moors Pool in dire conditions was rewarded with a calling female Brambling, which we watched along the west track, before moving off around the north moors. While watching the Brambling, we had the Cetti's Warbler in subsong near the gate. On the water, 12 Shoveler and 3 Pochard were swimming.
MB

Greater Scaup

12/10/12
A 1st winter drake Greater Scaup had been found at Upton Warren. A very uncommon seaduck in the midlands, and in particular from Worcestershire, as we lack many area of sufficiant open water, Therefore lacking many of the large Aythya flocks that are present in our surrounding counties.
So therefore, it was quite a nice 'tick' to get when a impromtu friday visit was organised. We headed or the Moors pool, and it didnt take very long to locate the SCAUP showing on the far side of the pool. Sadly to say, i wasnt at all left impresed by the bird. It was incredibly grotty (However some adult features were emerging) and not very interesting if im truily honest. But as always, it was nice to study its plumage and state of moult, which is something i always do enjoy looking at when looking at ducks.
 Moving from the West to the East side (in the hope of Jack Snipe) we knew we would be faced with direct sunlight into the hide, sillouetting everything. However, it again didnt take long to find the Scaup, showing slightly closer from this side.

A flock of 5 Wigeon were the only other birds of note away from the regulars.

13/10/12
And we were heading back to Upton for better photos of the Scaup (there really was very little better to do regional birding wise, honest!).
Again the Scaup refused to come anywhere near in decent light, and it was only at dusk, when all the ducks roosted on the East islands did the Scaup join them.

 

 

3 Wigeon, 2 Pochard, c20 Tufted Duck and c40 Shoveler were in evidence. However, the flock of c30 Snipe was by far the highlight from the 'runners up', as they probed their way between the tussocks.
MB

Marloes Mere- Ibis takeover

4/06/12

After a seemingly eternal drive from Strumble Head to the small village of Marloes, we soon pulled into the car park, On arrival in the National Trust car park, we paid our fee and headed down to the 'barbed wire gate' which has been mentioned hundreds of times as i check about news of a flock of special birds which had been present for months!

On the way down though, we were met by this rather appealing (grusome?) image of a cluster of 'The Lackey' moth catapillars, which certainly made for a change. I was actually quite appealed to these, their bright colours obviously to warn off predators!

Continuing on, walking through a rather picturesque landscape, we soon came to the 'barbed wire gate', and after a quick scan around, our quiry was located, a flock of 3 GLOSSY IBIS!

As can be seen from the photo, they wernt exactly very showy while we were there, and the birds often only gave glimpses amongst the tussoks. Rather a dissapointment considering the views/Photos/Video that Jason K from Shenstone Birder had a few weeks previously (Here)

 These birds have been giving me constant nightmares since april, and i was glad to have seen them. They (twice) flew over to Ireland to visit Tacumsluin (Or however its spelt) and gave me fears they wouldnt come back, but the week before we were due to go over to wales, the birds returned, and as can be seen, Stuck around a little longer for me! So thankyou Glossy Ibis's.

The flock consisted of 3 birds, a very colourful adult, which was absolutly stunning! Another adult, although slightly duller (and alot less showy), and an immature type, which still had white spotting on its head, and less of a 'glossy' look.

My first 'real' view out in the open (ish) was of this aformentioned immature bird.

But my main goal was to try to get soemething on that really glossy bird, and slowly but surely, it slowly (and i do mean very slowly!) worked it way through the tussoks to give great scope views. Annoyingly though, the tussocks were the downfall of all my photos, and i could never correctly focus on the bird as it always focused on tussoks in front of the bird, however, here are my attempts.

We then decided to move away from the bird for abit, as they were making very slow progress towards us. We headed up to the hide, where we sat for a while, A few Shoveler and a Gadwall were on the mere.
Time passed, and we didnt pick out anything, so walked back towards the Gate, noting a Common Blue Buttefly on the way. I looked up and noticed a Gannet flying over north! I shouted it out to my dad, and it was only then that i remembered that we were only a few hundered metres from the sea here.

Arriving back with the Glossy Ibis's, we noted that the colourful bird had walked in closer, and i started snapping away again!

The bird's were right bastards tbh, and only very briefly walked out between the tussoks, further hindering my chances of a decent photo. However, after a decent amount of time. one of the birds appeared in full view, at reasonable range, and i just blast fired photos, just in the vain hope of getting one decent photo. 

YEP! It still didnt work! So with us now being very Knat bitten, and suffering from mild sunstroke, we decided to retreat.
However, a quick video of the adult bird was needed!
Awsomeness.
Great bird!


These final 2 were proberbly the best photos i got though, but again, there are many 'faults' with them (No1 being too dark as my camera slipped from my lens when i took the photo, leading to slight vignetting around the bird, and No 2 the obvious downside being its facing away, despite it being the sharpest photo)

Anyway, they were great birds to see. With them being in summer plumage, and having only seen one bird previously (The 1w bird at Grimley) it made a nice learning trip (even though one wasnt needed for such a stunning, unmistakable bird)

However, that still wasnt enough, and we then switched to another nearby site.....

MB

Sheepwash has the Good's!

12/01/12

An after 6th form visit with the 'Gornal Birder' at first left us bemused! after seeing flock's of Pochard over the last visits, we were suprised to see that every single bird in the flcok had dissapeared, and there wasnt a single bird on site! and there was only 5 Tufted Duck! However, that was a nice flock of 7 GOOSANDER on the Pool (5 more flew over) (5 Drk, 7F), we walked around to the raised path, and i spotted a small flock of Teal sitting on the bank on the other side of the Pool, had a scope view of them so Andy could see, when he shouted a Wader has just popped out!

I looked though the scope and saw a COMMON SNIPE there! Our first ever at the park!, an expected patch first!

We continued around to the Chemical pool for the Gulls, and this turned out ot be a good idea!

I had a quick scan across the pipe and came across a large, Black backed gull!

i was watching a GREAT-BLACK BACKED GULL! and not only that, there was 5 of them perched on the pipe!
I took some time to get some video and photo's as this was the closest ive been to a GBBG since having my new camera.

With LBBG for comparision.

After my fill, and leaving without a 'white-winger' we headed throught the mound tunnel towards the Marshy pools where the Shoveler was last time!

Imagine my shock when as the pool opened out in front of us, i spotted a female duck again! The female SHOVELER was still here, and this time, she stopped on the pool for me to get a photo.

With the light going quite quickly, we decided to head back home.

All in all a nice visit!

MB