Eyemore and Trimpley

21/01/12

As trimpley is the capital for Crossbills in Worc's, if not the midlands me and may dad decided to have a look up there as its only up the road, and with a few easy year ticks, it was one of those 'Mop up' Visits.

We parked in the Lower car park, and immidiatly on stepping out of the car, i heard a Crossbill calling in the tree's adjacent to me, i looked, but couldnt see it.

Suddenly however, a huge finch flock of 30c Siskin, 30c Goldfinch and a few Redpolls emerged from the larches where they soon settled again, but what also flown out was a flock of 9 CROSSBILL.

We quickly located the birds feeding in tree's just behind the row adjoining the road, and were showing quite well, despite being high up.




After about 30 Mins, we walked through the Wood down to the River, where we walked to the 'other end' of Trimply (from the Arley side), We quickly Picked up a multitude of Goosander's, Counting 13 by the time we turned off to check the Reservour.

Some of the Goosanders were showing well, Including this Stunning drake!

Amazingly, we walked the entire length of this stretch of river without seeing a sinlge Mandarin! which is highly unusual for this section of the river, which is famed for them being here!

However, i was releaved when, on scanning the 'baby' pool, i spotted a Drake and a female Mandarin sitting under the overhanging tree's, also on the pool however, was a female Goosander, which was showing very well!

As it was still early (about 3pm), we headed back up to the car, for a rest before coming back down to check the gull 'pre-roost' before they fly off upriver to Chelmarsh.

We again had a look for the Crossbills in the Wood, and this time, they were very mobile and hard to track down, and in 30 mins we only got quick flight views of the flock!

Again, we headed down to the Reservour, and i sat on the bench overlooking the 'Big' pool, however, 7 Goosanders were now on the small pool, and the Mandarins were still there.

An hour in freezing cold winds looking at the Gulls produced a flyover Common Gull, and ultimatly, a adult YELLOW-LEGGED GULL! it touched down for about 2 seconds with a small flock of BHG, but soon took off with its companions, However, my hoped for 'White-winged' didnt drop in!

When i got back, i had some inspiration, so i drew a Drake Goosander, even annotated it if you couldnt tell :P

MB

Trimpley does it again!!!

22/01/11
Trimpley Res, Eyemore wood and surrounding area's.

I must say this was a twitch, but as it was not very far away it wasent too bad..
A large flock of waxwings had been reported at the car park t trimpley, but when we arrived there wasent any sign of any birds, never mind waxwings. a smaller flock had been seen at a farm in eyemore wood, so natrually we walked there, but again no sign, but we did ge onto a flock of 15 Lesser Redpoll, which didnt contain many mealys, a MARSH TIT was seen here as well, as was a very confiding GOLDCREST, and a treecreeper was seen towards the river clinging to the side of a tree, A ravern flew over and a bullfinch called, weeping in the background...
we continued, down to the river and back to trimpley, then climb back to the car park. Small flocks of GOOSANDER shown very well on the side of the river (13 bird total), containing 3 Drakes, but the numbers dropped as we approaced the RES.
The Upper Res was birdless as there was sailing taking place, and to say it was devoid is an understatement, so we dropped down onto the river counting the Mandarins as we walked up, We ended up counting 56 MANDARINS but the albino bird again failed to show.




I walked up to the Lower Res. where 8 Tufted Duck greeted us, as did a G C grebe.

The walk back to the car park didnt show any birds, and when we got to the car park 2 Birders were there looking into a tree, but we continued past, and i opened the door, then at this point i heard trilling!!!!!!

WAXWING!!!!!

I spun around, and saw a bird perched in the tree just to the left of me.....

Bins up: WAXWING...
Then another, 2 WAXWINGs.

I moved away from the birds and moved to a position which although further away was with the light and the birds were lit very well. Both were 1st winter birds, they dropped down onto the bushes with very few berries on a few times, giving stunning views, but i was unable to capture the moment. The crowd of 4 watched the birds for about 20 mins before they took off and flew off into Eyemore wood.
we again had another look in eyemore but only goldcrests were seen..

MB

FECKING MANDARINS!!!!

10/12/10 + 11/12/10
will combine both these days as they are both at the same site.
on the 10th we went looking for waxwings but drew a blank so a very last minuite decision to head top TRIMPLEY RES. was in order.
we parked at the top car park, where imidiatly 2 CROSSBILL flew over going NW, a walk to the res added 3 BRAMBLING over and the usual birds that are in eymore wood, goldcrest, tit flocks etc...
the bottom lake was completly frozen so we headed immidiatly up to the top lake, which was 20% frozen, but had a nice array of duck species (for here!!!), A drake GADWALL, and 3 WIGEON (1 drk, 2 fem) were unusual as was a very high count of 52 tufted duck, as usual a post roost flock of gulls were down and among them was a stunning adult YELLOW LEGGED GULL (i cant get rid of them this year).
a buzzard was on its kill nearby:


we were waking around the edge looking at the river when i picked up a flock of about 30c MANDARIN. i got my scope out and had a look, but no sooner that i had done this than a huge flock of mandarins (around 100 birds) were flying over my head, doing so fof about 5 mins before landing over the river in front of me. a few more flocks of smaller sizes dropped in and soon i was counting through them, a total of 192 MANDARIN were on the ice on the river and no matter how amazing that flock sounds, there was also a TOTAL ALBINO bird sitting among them, a stunning looking creature but as you can see from the buzzard video above it was very dark by now and i just couldnt get my camera to work, however we agreed to visit again the next day to try for videos and photo's.
another quick check of the main lake had a flock of 108 GOOSANDER floating around, adding to this the amount of flyovers (easilly 80+) put a huge total but as this could involve a degree of duplication i only decided to put the number down as the grounded birds...

11/12/10
as i said we came back the next day, but 3 hours of searching didnt produce the albino mandarin and the total number of mandarins had dropped to a still mindnumming 173 birds, but saying that all bird mumbers had dropped, goosanders were down to only a 50c figure and Tufties were even worse at only 16 birds, the Ad YELLOW LEGGED GULL was again presant but only briefy on the still frozen small pool.
3 Marsh tits were in the woods including a bird with an odd pink growth above its eye near the bottom car park. as you would imagine i took a few videos:
in one of the mandarin vids there is 68 birds:

MB

trimpley

6/02/10
dropped off at the top car park, from where i walked slowly down towards the lake, the crossbill's wernt on show, but 2 siskin and 5 coal tit were noted, a few GSW were drumming in the woodlands. 6 stock dove flew over NW
on the small lake a decent sized flock of LBBG's(71) with BHG's(33). a grey heron shown superbly on the small lake:

with no other birds around i headed up onto the big lake, but it was obvious that the lake was devoid..........

....... but a biker up the far end rode past and out came 65 coot(also 3 more on small lake), and a few seconds later a small party of tuftie ducks, and ven from this range i could pick out a female POCHARD in the flock. rather than following the bird i dropped onto the river for mandarins and goosanders,

NONE

not a single bird was on the river, i walked all the way along the river to the end of the resevoir, but only a male kestrel was noted.....

so climbing the bank back up onto the res.......

had a scan for the tuftie flock but they had disspaeared, then i heard them

CROSSBILL'S, i looked up to see a flock of 6 crossbill flying south calling(year tick). i watched them go over the hill and resumed my walk. the walk to the small res was birdless.

on the small lake the POCHARD was refound along with a female tufted duck with extensive white at the base of the bill.

another walk up and down the river was again birdless so back up to the car park.

at the entrance to the water works i again heard crossbills calling, i emerged out the woodland to see 3 crossbills briefly alight attop a larch, then fly south.

i spent 5 mins here but the crossbills didnt return

at the top car park a further 2 crossbill were seen, but this total quickly increased to 5 birds(1+ male). these birds were extremly skitish and were hard to pin down in the scope, therefore no videos but heres one from 31/12/09 anyway:

these birds then also flew south presumable to roost in the wyre forest....

and that concludes my visit to trimpley

MB

TEMPTATION

31/12/09

i couldent resist it......

i just couldent

had to go for the crossbills again

the light was much better today so i would have a better try at getting some half decent photos of the flock, we arrived at the top car park to find 3 birders already presant and 23 crossbills in trees and larches around the area, the views were absolutly immense, add together the light and the views the birds were giving and it equels some of the best views you've ever seen, quickly i started snapping away:

i also managed a fair few videos:
(videos not uploading)

after seeing a few siskin, coal tits and goldcrests we headed down the road to the bottom car park for the reservoir(got it again kerching), we heard a flock of crossbills calling a little down the road near the water works enterance, we walked over there and dropped under 2 silver birch trees and scanned the flock, at first i only counted 19 but soon after more and more birds piled in and flying around, we conservativly estimated 60 birds, at this point i heard some chittering from the trees above us, i looked up to find a superb flock of 31 lesser redpoll including a few paler birds, the crossbills started calling so i looked away briefly, then looked back at the redpolls and they were gone, not even a call to show they were about to fly, so bad manored, the crossbill flock then flew off back towards the top car park.

we went down the path towards the reservoir and had 3 more crossbills perched on pine trees there, we had a quick look on the raised bank between the 2 lakes, and i was outstanded by the gull flock that was down, 128 LBBG's and 3 herrings and about 50 BHG's(not including fly overs), i have never seen this much activity here before, not only by the birds but by the birders too, birders outnumbred general folk by 13-4, almost as mad as seeing half decent birds at trimpley, we then dropped onto the river and saw the flock of 21 mandarin which i also gladly got a video of:

(videos not uploading)

while watching these birds 4 more crossbills flew south over the river calling

back on the lakes there was 23 tufted duck and the obliguious mallards including a few dodgy hydrids/ escapiees.

will try and post videos in another post when blogger will let me upload them

MB

CROSSBILLS!!!!!!!!!!!

30/12/09
the lesser redpoll again briefly in the AM, also a coal tit, a nuthatch and 9 goldfinch, 37 canada's in the vismig field and a kingfisher on the small pool again

at about midday i heard news of a flock of 32 crossbill at eyemore wood which martyn found a few weeks previous, but had substancially increased, so my only reaction was to get up there,

on arrival it was raining( not heavy rain though) and the light was poor, we decided to walk along the road and listen for the birds( this is about 1:30pm) about 10 metres down the road, we found the flock,but now there was 42 of them.all plastered in the top of a tree( not a larch), but then flew onto a nearby larch to feed. they shown very well althogh the light was very poor. i took the opportunity to get a few crap photos and videos: here is a few:

a male bird.



while watching these bird i heard a call one which i found quite easy to recognise but of a species i have yet to see, my dad possibly saw a HAWFINCH fly over,i will not count a record like this, my dad wasent sure so the record is nothing.
and on the way out we stopped and had a scan over some adjoining fields near the villiage and wassel wood which looks over towards the clee hills, i very briefly saw a small raptor flying back towards the reservior( frikkin hell i spelt it, i think), my dad saw it with better views and said it was no less then a female merlin, what a fitting end to a good visit
MB