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. 

Monday January 5 - Earlswood Lakes

 My plan to spend a quiet day in the house was abruptly changed when a Whatsapp message announced the presence of a Caspian Gull at Earlswood.

Overnight snow made it one of the slowest twitches ever, and by the time I got there the finders, Matt and John, had not seen it for a while. The lakes were almost completely frozen and hundreds of gulls were standing on the ice.

Disappointingly the Casp could not be relocated. In its place was a small group of consolation year-ticks. These included at least 24 Common Gulls (John reckoned at least 30 were present), the long-staying Yellow-legged Gull now in its fifth year and still showing a largely dark bill, and legs which are only just starting to turn straw coloured, a Little Grebe in one of the holes in the ice, the long-staying drake Wigeon, and a fly-over Grey Wagtail.

Yellow-legged Gull on left, Common Gull on the right

I doubt whether I'll be able to resist trying again tomorrow.

Sunday January 4 - Morton Bagot

As I left the house this morning the temperature recorded on my car's dashboard was -6 degrees C. So I already knew that Morton Bagot was not the best choice of venue. But it was a chance to catch up with Dave after Xmas and we're nothing if not predictable.

As suspected the patch was frozen solid, indeed just getting there proved quite challenging. I've decided to reinstate my Morton Bagot year-list so at least adding to that kept us going. The final total was a paltry 33 species, none of which could be described as unusual.

I only managed to take one photograph, and normally it wouldn't have made the cut. But in the absence of any competition my out of focus, over-exposed Redwing makes the blog by default.

The nearest we came to excitement was when we spotted a flock of geese in fields beyond the flash field. They prompted me to return to the car for my tripod, but eventually proved to be just 90 Greylag Geese and 50 Canada Geese. So we were not able to join in the wild goose bonanza which has been experienced by several Midland sites since the cold weather set in.

Absent today were Stonechats, Snipe, Gulls, Ducks (apart from Mallard) and even Moorhen. However I did add eight species to my overall year-list; Pheasant, Fieldfare, Bullfinch, Green Woodpecker, Greylag Goose, Lapwing, Buzzard, and  Kestrel.

Hopefully better days lie ahead.