Upton Warren

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I rarely stray from Morton Bagot, and these days I almost never twitch anything.

However, the presence of the first ever Red-necked Grebe on the Moors Pool at my old stomping ground of Upton Warren was too much to resist. The additional advantage of the locality is that the concrete hide there is the only wheelchair friendly hide in Worcestershire, as far as I know, so ok for Lyn.

The news was encouraging, and suggested that the Grebe had been touring the pool. Unfortunately, by this afternoon it had evidently decided that the east side of the pool was ideal, this being the furthest place from the concrete hide it could get. so I'm very sorry but my bridge camera could only manage distant record shots, as you will see.

Red-necked Grebe, distant and asleep

Red-necked Grebe awake, but still distant

It looked an awful lot better in the scope, and I was rather proud of Lyn when she successfully picked it up through the bins.

There were also other distractions. A second-summer Mediterranean Gull was standing in the Black-headed Gull colony.

Mediterranean Gull

A very distant Whimbrel was standing on the island in front of the east hide, but too distant from the concrete hide for even an attempted record shot. But much more obliging was a Water Rail which swam in front of the concrete hide a couple of times.

Water Rail

Apart from the Whimbrel, none of these species has yet occurred at Morton Bagot (as long as you ignore a pager message from a few of years ago which I am sure related to a Little Grebe). Cetti's Warblers sang, Sedge Warblers too, and I have to admit that it crossed my mind to wonder whether I should reconsider my current birding strategy.

Naaah! I'll be back on the patch tomorrow.