Midweek update - Forhill and Earlswood

Tuesday was best this week. I chose to wander around the Forhill area on a day of sunshine and a blustery southerly. Almost the first bird I saw was a Ring-necked Parakeet, my first of the year, which flew noisily overhead and was gone before I could get the camera out.

The rest of the visit skirted the edge of the Kings Norton Golf Course, but mostly took in a series of grassy fields and some muddy horse paddocks. Good numbers of Woodpigeons, Redwings, and Jackdaws were counted, but the species list was pretty limited.

Back at the car, as I was removing my wellies, a pair of Mistle Thrushes flew across the road and disappeared into trees. The significance of this event was that it was another year-tick. 

As I set off for home my Whatsapp pinged with news of a drake Pochard at Earlswood. I was conflicted. It shouldn't be the last available Pochard this year, but you never know. A shopping trip to Solihull with Lyn was unavoidable, but I had a cunning plan. On the way home I dropped the bird into the conversation and a brief detour to the lake brought me my third year-tick of the day.

The only downside was that I had only packed my binoculars and had taken no decent photographs around Forhill.

So this morning I headed back to Earlswood. There had been no sign of the Pochard on Wednesday and I rightly guessed it had gone. 

Even on a gloomy, damp morning, you can rely on the Great Crested Grebes to show well. Most were in winter plumage, but the closest bird was ready for summer.

Saturday/Sunday January 17/18 - Morton Bagot

 It's unusual for me to go birding at Morton Bagot two days running, but the recent switch to milder weather, encouraged me to think that the patch would be more like its old self. And so it was.

Saturday was the brighter day. I discovered John S and Sam McV busily ringing birds, handling a Redwing as I joined them. Winter thrushes have remained a staple this winter and I reckon at least 100 are on site, with Redwings slightly more numerous than Fieldfares.

Fieldfare

My main interest, having decided to take part in Patchwork Challenge again this year, was to boost my lamentable Morton Bagot year list. I'd somehow managed two visits this year without seeing a Dunnock or a House Sparrow. I soon put that right, also adding Moorhen, Pied Wagtail, Teal, and Little Egret during the course of Saturday morning. Its amazing how bad the patch can be when all the pools are frozen.

Little Egret showing breeding plumage aigrettes

I am also listing within the wider Circle, and managed three new birds. A small party of Linnets, and a fly-over Yellowhammer eluded my camera (the latter was heard only), but one or two Reed Buntings included a co-operative male which I noticed sported a metal ring.

Also present on Saturday was a flock of 81 Lapwings, 29 Black-headed Gulls, and four Stonechats.

This morning Dave joined me, and to begin with we sat despondently under the hatch-back of my car watching the rain pound down. Had we made a mistake coming at all? 

Fortunately, after half an hour the rain eased and then stopped altogether. It remained grey and a bit misty, but perfectly birdable.

Our first good decision was to try walking through the sedge at the old pool field. In no time at all we surpassed my Jack Snipe tally of the week before, flushing six plus seven Common Snipe. In years gone by the Common species would vastly out-number the wintering Jacks, but nowadays the numbers are almost equal. I suspect that this reflects a loss of UK breeding habitat for the mainly British Common Snipe.

Still on the look out for Morton Bagot year-ticks we added Treecreeper, Sparrowhawk, Marsh Tit and Peregrine to the list, but all were brief sightings and evaded my camera.

Mammals rarely feature in this blog, but today they stole the show. Dave spotted first one, then two, and finally three Red Foxes chasing each other around the newly planted area. I couldn't get them all in shot but did manage several of two of them.

I have to confess that I don't know all that much about Fox behaviour, but I do know that winter is the mating season, so I imagine that both sexes were involved. 

Back to birds. From a purely Morton Bagot perspective the best bird was saved to last. As we made our way across the ridge field we started to hear the "thrum thrum thrum" made by the wings of a Mute Swan. Amazingly it was at least 200 metres away when it finally appeared and ultimately flew past us. The sound of those wings carries an awfully long way. This was the first Mute Swan here for almost exactly a year. 

I understand its International Swan weekend, but the BTO qualify that by making it clear they are only interested in Bewick's and Whoopers, so our bird won't count.

Wednesday January 14 - Earlswood Lakes

 An overnight frost was followed by a sunny morning. I soon noticed small flocks of Redwings and Fieldfares flying south-west over the garden, and by the time Lyn was up I had counted 156 and 85 respectively. Could this be a sign of a hard weather movement?

Just after 10:00 the Whatsapp pinged. Matt had found an adult Mediterranean Gull on Engine Pool. I hastened to the spot and discovered that most of the ice covering the lakes still persisted. After an anxious sort through about 400 Black-headed Gulls I located the bird.

I didn't see one within the Circle last year, so I am grateful to Matt for finding the bird. 

Also present were four Common Gulls and the near adult Yellow-legged Gull still sporting a largely dark bill.

I didn't see any evidence that thrushes were moving at Earlswood, but a single Skylark heading over might point to some on-going movement.

I had to return home within an hour to resume my late breakfast.

Tuesday January 13 - Cruise Hill/Elcocks Brook

 I thought it was about time I got back to the random wandering. I was struggling to find a name for today's venue. The middle of nowhere was tempting, but I suppose it was half way between Cruise Hill and Norgrove Pool. 

I parked at Elcock's Brook, and immediately spotted a Little Egret standing sheepishly in a field containing sheep. I rightly suspected this would be the highlight.

Later I chatted to a friendly local out for a walk, and he asked me what I'd seen. Once I got past the Little Egret I was floundering. A Sparrowhawk was my first this year, a Raven, and eight Redpolls. He seemed mildly impressed by the latter sighting.

At least it didn't rain, and there were views. Mostly of sheep.

It's hard to believe that Redditch is just over the horizon.

Sunday January 11 - Morton Bagot

 I was birding alone today, the weather forecast having wrongly suggested it would rain. In fact it was just cloudy, but still icy under foot with patches of frozen snow remaining.

I chose to walk into the marsh (the old pool field) and successfully flushed my first Jack Snipe of the year, along with two Common Snipe. I was also pleased to find a single male Stonechat, and went on to find at least two more perching on the plastic tree guards in the adjacent field. There were also about 20 Meadow Pipits and a single Skylark in there.

It's always good to see that the Stonechats are surviving the cold snap, and with milder weather on the way I'm optimistic for their future.

Another species which struggles in the cold is Lapwing. Initially it appeared that only eight remained on the flash field, but later on a swirl of birds included twenty-one more. 

 The big flock of birds were mostly corvids, at least 800 estimated, along with 180 or so Woodpigeons. I searched for any sign they had been flushed by a raptor, but although I did discover two Red Kites drifting in, I suspect that the cause of the melee may have been something else.

Thursday January 8 - Morgrove Coppice and Spernall STW

A rather misty morning following a quick partial thaw. All the snow has gone, but some ice remains as I nearly found out to my cost at Morgrove Coppice where my first act on setting foot out of the car was to slip alarmingly. Fortunately, the rest of me was still half in the driver's seat and no harm ensued.

An hour's wander was rewarded with a calling Marsh Tit, seven Redpolls and three Coal Tits. Distinctly tame.

I then drove to Haydon Way Wood where I was greeted by the sight of an adult Peregrine sitting on a pylon. That's more like it.

Also visible in the mist was a Little Egret which flew downstream, and a recently deceased Grey Heron which I guess will have struck the power lines stretching in a line high overhead.

For the next hour and a half, walking upriver to the sewage works, I saw plenty of birds without really spotting anything out of the ordinary. Only a couple of Meadow Pipits joined the Peregrine on my year-list. Other birds included several Teal, a Grey Wagtail, and lots of Redwings and Starlings.

It'll probably be worth another visit later in the winter.

Tuesday January 6 - Earlswood Lakes

 As intimated in my last post, I was irresistibly drawn back to Earlswood this morning in the hope that the Caspian Gull might drop in again.

Sadly, it didn't. The morning was nevertheless spent staring at gulls. Unfortunately the hole in the ice around and on which almost all the birds were gathered was closest to the north-west side of Engine Pool. This meant watching from that the closest observation point left us (me, John O, and Matt) looking south-east in the direction of the sun. There was some cloud cover, but probably not enough.

We all like looking at gulls, and the main feature was another good count of Common Gulls. In the context of Earlswood our best tally of 27 was pretty decent and I now know that John's count of 30 yesterday and the one made today both beat the previous record of 26 flying over in April 2018. Thanks to John O for the heads up.

Eight Common Gulls in this shot including three 1st winters

The fifth calendar year Yellow-legged Gull was once again present, but the Little Grebe seemed to have departed overnight.

Inevitably we soon found an "interesting" gull to look at, in this case a Yellowish-legged Gull. White-headed and somewhat darkly grey mantled with legs which it could be argued were straw coloured it was tempting to consider it as a possible Yellow-legged Gull or a hybrid. Eventually it wing-flapped allowing us to see that the fifth primary had a narrow black band across it. This feature meant Yellow-legged Gull could not automatically be dismissed, but at the same time didn't prove it was a Yellow-legged Gull. Gulls eh!

We also had trouble assessing the colour of the orbital ring. It generally looked dark, but in the photo shown above looked more yellowish (bad for Yellow-legged Gull). Looking again at the photo of it flapping its wings, is there too much grey extending into the bases of the sixth, seventh and eighth primaries? 

I think the identification was left as indeterminate. I headed to my sister's house in Tidbury Green where I added a year-tick. Coal Tit, definitely.

PS: Actually, the adult Yellow-legged Gull got the thumbs up from my fellow observers so I was clearly being too cautious.