Wyre Forest - 3rd March

I'm back and with a plethora of excuses as to why I haven't blogged for some time; bronchitis, bubonic plague, frostbite, kidnap etc (strictly speaking, only the first one is actually true). 

Now spring is in the air and as the bleak winter loosens its grasp, I'm sure postings will begin to spring forth from my blog like a bouncing March Hare. Or there again, perhaps not!

Back in the birding saddle after a few weeks of absence, it was a trip down to the Wyre Forest on the Worcs/Shrops border with Martyn. Of course, we stayed Worcs side, not wishing to stray far from the regional borders. Not without passports and inoculations anyway.

It was one of those mis-timed things, had we gone the day before which was a brighter warmer day, I'm sure we would have bagged more of our target birds. We had hoped for perhaps displaying Goshawk & also Lesser Pecker, neither of which can be described as easy in our area. Unfortunately the day remained dull, cool and overcast.

On the bright side, we encountered 3 Dipper along the Dowles Brook. Contrary to Martyn's photo below, we enjoyed very good views (blame the above lighting conditions!).

Dipper - image courtesy of Martyn Yapp's recycle bin

In the Dowles Brook/Dry Mill Lane area we also noted a male Brambling (in a small Chaffinch flock), a large Siskin flock of perhaps 30 birds, 1 Bullfinch, 2 Grey Wagtail, 2 GS Woodpecker, 2 Jay, Nuthatch and Treecreeper.

Great Tit

Alas spending extensive time in Wyre Lesser Pecker country and another Worcs site with previous history of LSW, we could not winkle out one of these elusive buggers and there was no sign of any Goshawk either. At the site that has been known to produce Goshawk, there were up to 5 Buzzard and 2 Raven.

In other news (apart from the shocking discovery of poo in Ikea cakes), the first Wheatears are now arriving on our shores, so keep the faith; in no time they will be hitting our local patches. Spring cometh.