Sunday December 24 - Morton Bagot

 Quite a gang of us met up at Morton Bagot this morning. Tony, Leigh, Dave and myself were keen to see what we could find in the mud and gloom of a dull December day. Tony had brought his thermal imager along and was keen to show us what it could achieve.

The first noteworthy bird owed nothing to the technology. I spotted a rather small Peregrine as it approached from the direction of Bannams Wood. Size is very difficult to assess for a lone bird against a grey sky, but our impression suggested it would be likely to be a male.

A little further on the thermal imager spotted a heat source in a hedgerow tree. We eventually established it was a Grey Squirrel. A bit of a disappointment, but scanning the field behind us I spotted a female Stonechat, and later on we spotted the Barn Owl roosting in its usual spot.

Stonechat

We finally reached the scrape field (formerly pool field)  and followed Tony and his imager as he slowly picked his way across. After about ten minutes he beckoned us over and pointed to the base of some sedges on the opposite side of a small flooded scrape. A Jack Snipe was crouching in plain sight, except that without knowing it was there you'd have walked straight past it.

The Jack Snipe

Carefully picking our way through the sedge and rushes we flushed 17 Common Snipe, and a near record 10 Jack Snipe.  By now the wind was getting up, dashing any hopes of Tony catching any of them. I have no plans to disturb them again except for a monthly count.

We reached the Flash field and saw 39 Teal and 15 Mallard before Dave got an unsettling text. There was a drake Smew at his other patch, Marsh Lane GP, and he wasted no time in  showing us a clean pair of heels. I hear he successfully twitched it.

The last hour was spoilt by increasingly frequent showers and we added nothing much more to the day's list.

Finally I just want to wish a Merry Xmas to everyone who reads this blog.