Ochruros Musings and a Good Staffs Day

11th August 2012

The Ochruros season came to a poignant end, watching a lone bird hopping about on roofs from an elevated urban watchpoint. I can now reveal that Martyn and I kept tabs on two separate presumed single males from spring into summer. It was an absolute privilege to watch these charismatic urban dwelling birds right from the very heart of the conurbation,

Both of the birds seemed to remain unpaired, although this could not be proven as the birds became elusive after their initial territorial singing. Both were 1^st-summer birds, which gives me great hope as it is though that 1^st summer birds tend to return to their natal area. Perhaps the apparent lack of breeding is simply due to a lack of experience?

 

12^th August 2012

Croxall Lakes, 7:45am

Starting out at Croxall, alas the high water level on the main pool is still causing much disappointment on the wader front. However there was visible muddy scrape on the back pool and this and the river banks had attracted 10 plus Green Sandpiper, and 15 or so Snipe. A single Common Sand was on the edge of the main pool. 3 Little Egrets today, with up to 6 being reported of late.

In addition to the increase in wader activity there was a noticeable movement of passerines. This included 1 Garden Warbler, 2 female Blackcaps, some lovely yellowy juv Willow Warblers, 2 Chiffchaffs and 1 Yellow Wagtail.

Goosander are now a regular fixture on the river. A Kingfisher was on the back pool.

Blithfield Reservoir, 12:00

With an easterly breeze and a slight inclemency in the air, it was time to move on to bigger and better things (ie Blithfield) for the remainder of the day.

I hadn’t quite expected a regional tick today, but soon after arrival I was furnished with one! 2 Sandwich Terns were around the deeps as we watched from the Fisherman’s hut. 

Sandwich Tern - images appear courtesy of Martyn Yapp - http://www.theregionaltick.blogspot.co.uk/

Another very good Staffs bird was a juvenile Marsh Harrier that was in Tad Bay at 2:55pm, having put in a number of appearances both here and at Uttoxeter in recent days.

Other notable birds were 2 Yellow-legged Gull present (adult and 3^rd cy), a juv Arctic Tern along with 30 or so Common tern and 2 Common Sandpiper.

Tri-County Regional Birding

Saturday 4^th August 2012

With the ghetto birding season all but over and autumn approaching, it was time to make a return to the A38 gravel pits for a few hours this morning. The water levels are at last receding, albeit very slowly.

Croxall Lakes 9.10am

Enough muddy edge had appeared on the main lake to accommodate a Common Sandpiper, with another 2 also on the river. No Common Terns today, perhaps sadly now departed due to lack of success. Notable birds on the reserve included 2 Goosander on the river, 1 Little Egret, 10 Great-crested Grebe and a Buzzard.

Almost on first name terms with this song thrush now...

Sunday 5^th August 2012

Grimley New Workings, Worcs 8:00am

Although not documented on here, the previous visit to Grimley with Martyn saw us dipping White-rumped Sandpiper at 6:00am on 15^th July. An important regional bird missed out on there. You can read more details of this tragic morning and also about historical midlands records of WRS on the Regional Tick blog.

This morning’s regional twitch however was more of a success. Great White Egret, a bird that has become much more regular in the West Midlands region in recent years was still absent from my personal regional list.

This was easily put right though, with the bird flying into the main pool around 8.00am-ish and preening and showing well for us. We were close enough to observe the striking green loral patch and long yellow bill, before this gangly egret headed off north. At the time of writing, this bird is still putting in daily appearances at Grimley. 

Great White Egret - courtesy Martyn Yapp - http://www.theregionaltick.blogspot.co.uk/

Great White Egret - courtesy Martyn Yapp - http://www.theregionaltick.blogspot.co.uk/

Other birds noted at Camp Lane Pools were 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 3 Grey Heron, 5 Skylark and a Buzzard.

At Wagon Wheel Lane, surprisingly the floods seemed to have almost dried up. That did not however, deter 2 Green Sand, 1 Dunlin, 1 Snipe and 1 LRP.

Marsh Lane, West Midlands 10:30am

A Temminck’s Stint was reported early morning. A report that turned out to be ‘erroneous’ - the bird in question was in fact a smart adult Pectoral Sandpiper! That will do nicely, a second regional tick in one day, not often that happens. Very nice indeed.

Also here 1 LRP, 3 Oystercatcher and 5 Common Tern.

Blithfield Reservoir, Staffs

We now visited our third county of the day.

On the way to Blithers we stopped in at a withheld location, where there were some unseasonably wintery sights, including 7 Wigeon and a staggering 32 Goosander. This was counterbalanced with a more summery sight of some juv Yellow Wagtails. A thunderstorm was approaching.

At Blithfield we concentrated on the Dam and Causeway areas hoping the storm had dropped something tasty in. It did drop in a Little Gull, but we did not see this.

About 50 Common Terns were present and a Yellow-legged Gull was on one of the bouys. A different bird than the YLG from a couple of weeks ago, this one being a full adult. Also 2 Common Sandpiper on the causeway.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Sunday 29^th July

It’s fair to say last Sunday was a good wader day.

Martyn and I headed up to Frodsham Marsh, the reason for this – a Buff-breasted Sandpiper that had appeared yesterday. This would be a new tick for me, although it did sound elusive and flighty in yesterday's report. All the words I don’t like to hear. At any rate a wader fix was badly needed, so off we went.

Scanning Tank 6 from the main path, there were quite a number of birders assembled, including a few familiar faces from across the Staffs border. An impressive flock of up to 1000 Black-tailed Godwit were roosting, along with a single Bar-tailed Godwit and 3 Redshank. Dunlin were more active as we searched through them unsuccessfully for the Buff-breasted Sand.

This approach clearly was not working with none of the birders present managing to spot the BBS. After an hour or so we decided to try another tack, to find another viewing area as the bird had been seen at the back of the tank late yesterday and some parts of the tank were very distant viewing from where we stood.

Our investigations paid off. There were quite a number of small waders working through the vegetation on the other side, mainly Dunlin, but also a Little Stint, 4 Snipe and single Ringed & LR Plovers. There was also a Ruff here and once we got onto that, Martyn locked onto another small wader – the Buff-breasted Sandpiper!

It stayed closely associated with the Ruff whilst it was feeding and it was moving quickly. A new bird for me, it was slightly smaller than I’d anticipated but it’s warm, buffy colouration was noted, as was its short bill and yellow legs. Assumed the bird was an adult. We had good scope views for about 10 minutes before all the waders flushed by a Marsh Harrier. Both the Buff-breast Sand and Ruff flew off with a Lapwing flock.

Other birds noted included 3 Yellow Wagtails, a showy Reed Warbler, 53 Shelduck, 3 Teal, 40 Curlew (in a nearby field) and 2 Ruddy Shelduck.

We then spent the afternoon around the Burton Mere/Inner Marsh Farm area.

At Burton Mere we had 3 Avocet, 20 Black-tailed Godwit, 1 Snipe, Little Egret, 1 Ruff (a male moulting out breeding plumage), 3 Oystercatcher, 4 Redshank and a few Teal and Gadwall. A Water Rail was heard calling.

Dragonflys noted were Common Darter, Brown Hawker and Blue Tailed Damselfly.

The hide at Inner Marsh Farm was far less populated that Burton and therefore a more enjoyable place to watch from. Waders again was a key theme – 105 Black-tailed Godwit, 27 Redshank, 7 Avocet, Dunlin, 1 LRP, 1 Ringed Plover 1 Oystercatcher, 1 Snipe. Also here Little Egret, 2 Buzzard, 4 Common Tern (3 juvs) and a few Teal.

22nd July 2012

With a bit of sunshine and warm weather punctuating the rainy season it was perhaps the best shot at Honey Buzzard in quite a while. A bird that has long evaded my list; I never quite got around to visiting the traditional sites and some of these have become less reliable in recent years.

Martyn and I headed north to Welbeck, near Clumber Park, Notts. Probably the nearest site from the West Midlands, although it too has also suffered a poor Honey Buzzard season.

On the way up, a call in at Croxall Lakes. Still no shore or wader scrapes. Here we noted 5 Oystercatcher, around 7 Common Terns, 1 Little Egret, 1 Peregrine, Kingfisher and a female Kestrel eating a vole.

Kestrel - image courtesy of Martyn Yapp

Common Tern - image courtesy of Martyn Yapp

All very nice, but we were hungry for more raptor action. Welbeck did not disappoint. On arrival at 10:00am a Red Kite was on show, high up. Despite the news that the HB season had been ‘diabolical’ with sightings only once or twice a week, we were lucky enough to get on to one around 10:15am. Although this was fairly distant, the distinctive profile of Honey Buzzard could be noted; a longer-winged, bulkier bodied and long-tailed Buzzard than Common.

Although the HB drifted up and out of sight and was not seen again, the action did not end there. A bit later in the morning an Osprey performed well over the pool and was mobbed by Buzzards and a Kestrel. 2 Sprarrowhawks were also noted.

Shortly after noon, we headed back towards Staffs – Blithfield in particular where the rest of the arvo was spent.

This time last year a visit to Blithfield provided a vast array of wader species (in Midlands terms), in comparison to what we have now (these included Greenshank, Dunlin, Sanderling, Ringed Plover and a staggering 27 LRPs). Of course this is entirely due to the volume of water probably being twice what it was then! One good thing about this very hot weather, if it can just drop water levels a few inches we may yet see some wader return passage.

Noted were 3 Oystercatcher, 5 Common Sandpiper, 2 Lesser Whitethroat and 46 Common Terns (only 1 juv).

The most interesting bird of the afternoon, was this 3^rd CY Yellow-legged Gull. Note retained immature feathers. Many of the feathers looked bleached out and ready to drop. It will be interesting to see how it looks in a few weeks, should it stick about. The gull also had a rather stonking bill, of almost Caspo like proportions.

YLG - image courtesy of Martyn Yapp

6th & 7th July

Friday 6th July

Cannock Chase

Although the weather wasn't ideal, the rain had cleared up enough to tempt Martyn and myself into another crack at Nightjar.

It was a bit cool though and Nightjar were clearly taking longer to get going than on our previous visit. First churning was not heard this time until nearly 10pm. We saw 2 and this was brief, however it was a good view of a male.

Our night was made by roding Woodcock which showed very well. There were at least 2 birds, possibly even 3 and a scuffle was observed.

There was also a brief sighting of Long-eared Owl.

Other sightings throughout the evening included 2 Tree Pipit, 1 Green Woodpecker, 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker, a few Whitethroat and a Kestrel.

Saturday 7th July

As Martyn explains we began with an interesting stroll canalside. A very different way to see our great city, Birmingham's hinterland is atmospheric and steeped in industrial history.

Bird sightings included 2 Peregrines on BT Tower and 2 Grey Wagtails but sadly the nest of the latter seemed to have been disbanded.

Croxall Lakes, Staffs

On to a more traditional birding haunt. Still very high water levels all around meant it didn’t look good for waders, the only ones we saw were 5 Oystercatchers and even those were flying away.

Also of note 2 Shelduck, 3 Common Tern and 1 Little Egret. Warblers included 3 Reed Warbler, Blackcap and Whitethroat. Banded Damoiselle was on the wing.

Common Tern - image courtesy Martyn Yapp

Great Crested Grebe - image courtesy Martyn Yapp

There was an important military event going on nearby at Alrewas War Memorial, the crowds and traffic made it difficult for a loo stop and a look at the sightings book.

Nearby there was a family party of 4 Kestrels and a flock of 14 Lapwing and about 100 of these seemingly freshly emerged five-spotted burnet moths.

Five-spotted Burnet Moths

Whitemoor Haye

Here we had 4 Grey Partridge, a singing Corn Bunting, Yellowhammer and Kestrel.

On the pit there were 3 Oystercatchers, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Ringed plover 1 and 5 Common Tern.

Blithfield

As it had began raining there was a change of plan and we made Blithfield the final stop of the day. 

Disappointingly there was no Osprey. Notable birds here included 5 Common Sandpiper and 27 Common Tern, a redhead Goosander over the causeway, 2 Oystercatcher and a juvenile Black-headed Gull.