Wednesday November 17 - wandering about gets results

 I've been birding twice in the last few days, but the most noteworthy bird came when I was shopping (technically).

So let's go back to Monday, a grey old morning with no real breeze. I decided to walk from home to check out the Mappleborough Green area, which is partly posh houses, partly farmland. The best bits of birding happened in Haye Lane. A covey of 10 Red-legged Partridges was a start, then one or two Mistle Thrushes made themselves known. The highlight came as I scanned a weedy field from which a flock of over 50 Linnets appeared. As I was counting them I heard a Little Owl calling from a little further down the lane. The upshot was that the calling stopped and I was unable to locate the bird. Given that I have not seen the Morton Bagot Little Owl since January and presume it to have changed location or died, this new bird was an encouraging find.

On Tuesday I had to go food shopping, and chose Alcester because it meant I would be able to stop at Haselor scrape for what is usually a perfunctory visit which yields very little. I had packed my bins and a camera (just in case), and was startled to discover the scrapes were covered in birds. 

A flock of 123 Lapwings were on the nearest pool, right by the road. Beyond them were hundreds of gulls on the furthest pool.

Some of the Lapwings

I really needed a scope to go through the gulls, but this is where the Nikon P900 comes in handy. By photographing the flock in sections I was able to get some counts, and check the back of the camera for anything noteworthy. That produced this:

An adult Yellow-legged Gull with Lesser Black-backs

Yellow-legged Gulls are the Mediterranean counterpart of the Herring Gull and were elevated to species status a few decades ago giving everyone an instant headache. Among various subtle features, they are a little longer winged and darker grey mantled than a Herring Gull, generally lack the "step" between tertials and primaries, and moult their feathers a couple of months earlier. This means that a white headed Herring Gull from October to December stands a good chance of being this species. In an ideal world I might have been able to see its yellow (not pink) legs, but you can't have everything.

One or two ducks were occasionally visible, including at least 16 Teal, four Wigeon, and three Shoveler. I don't have permission to leap the gate, so anything else there had to go unnoticed.

Today, Wednesday, I decided to recce a walk I'm considering taking a couple of friends on. I parked at Morgrove Coppice car-park and was to set off on a circular walk which included Morton Common. However, as I tarried in the car-park I heard a rather loud "kyip" type call coming from the direction of the wood. A Common Crossbill was evidently flying over, heading towards Spernall Park. Although it called several more times, it was distant, and I just couldn't locate it. I sometimes think birdwatching should be called birdhearing. Perhaps that's why birding is the favoured term.

The rest of the walk produced between 100 and 200 Redwings, a lively flock of Coal Tits, Goldcrests, and Long-tailed Tits, a calling Stonechat (which I also didn't see), about 40 Siskins, and maybe 10 or so Redpolls. Quite enough to keep my friends happy when we finally agree a date when we are all free.

I'm definitely enjoying the freedom of my enlarged patch.