Glossy Ibis at Lower Moor

At the start of 2020 I promised myself I would spend a bit more time birding away from Morton Bagot, and the plan was going well until...well you know.

Emerging from full lockdown I resumed my patch visits despite having missed all of April and half of May. Today I fancied a change. A Glossy Ibis has been resident at Lower Moor between Evesham and Pershore for several weeks, and I had given up hoping it would give Morton Bagot a look.

The directions were good, and pointed me to a flash at the end of Bridge Street in Lower Moor. I parked in the village and walked down to the small fishermen's carpark overlooking a rather splendid flash of similar size to the nearest flash at Morton Bagot.

The views were excellent, and it took me no time at all to confirm that the Ibis was not present. Instead I located a Green Sandpiper with 24 Lapwings and 21 Black-headed Gulls. After about fifteen minutes a Little Egret landed on the river, but out of sight, a couple of hundred yards to the west.

I was not worried. It was clear that the Glossy Ibis was periodically absent, it was just a matter of waiting. A car pulled up, and out jumped a familiar figure. I hadn't seen Rob Prudden for over a decade, and to my surprise he seemed to recognise me (I have been in disguise since all my hair fell out in 2005). It was great to chat to him at length about the site and how it has evolved since I was last here.

We were interrupted by the Glossy Ibis which flew in from behind us, and started feeding. Cue VT.

Lower Moor's flash is situated on the Avon flood meadows just north of the river. When I used to visit in the 1990s it barely existed, and most of the birding interest was centred on a small gravel pit and a sewage works at the edge of the village. The big improvement came courtesy of a huge injection of cash from the council  tip who had a large environmental grant to bestow, and quick thinking local birders like Rob set up a trust called The Vale Landscape Heritage Trust to receive the donation and manage the land for the good of wildlife and to benefit the community.

I may have got some of the details slightly wrong, but its a win win for wildlife in this part of the world.

The story of the finding of the Glossy Ibis is a not unfamiliar one. The farmer spotted it and identified it as a black Curlew. He rang Rob who was keen to see such a curious bird. He of course realised what it actually was as soon as he saw it.

I mentioned the Egret, and Rob was more interested than I had expected. It turns out that they are less regular here than they are at Morton Bagot, and there are two Great White Egrets present not too far away at Kemerton. After a while the Egret put in another brief appearance before flying off west. It was just a Little Egret. Further interest was added by a fly-by Cuckoo, and an equally brief Kingfisher.

I decided to spend the rest of the morning exploring the banks of the river Arrow between Broom and Wixford. In recent years a number of new dragonfly species have colonised the Avon, and I wondered whether the faster flowing Arrow might be worth checking.

It turned out that the riverside meadows were smothered in damselflies, particularly Banded Demoiselles but I saw not one dragonfly. It was still nice to see a couple of White-legged Damselflies, and several Red-eyed Damselflies (a species I have not seen at Morton Bagot).

Banded Demoiselle

White-legged Damselfly

Red-eyed Damselfly

Not quite stealing the show were two singing Yellowhammers. Its sad that this familiar species now features as noteworthy as these were the first I had heard singing this year.

Yellowhammer

It flew off before I could engage the brain and get some footage of it in full song. There are still plenty of places in the UK which are great for wildlife thank goodness. They're just harder to find than they should be.