Friday December 31 - The ringers continue to score

 While I have found reasons to stay at home since Christmas, Tony K and the ringers have been keeping the torch alight...well the thermal camera anyway.

To begin with they used it to assist with the trapping of two Jack Snipe at Morton Bagot.

Jack Snipe - per Tony Kelly

Most of their activity was centred on Alne Wood, a few miles south of Morton Bagot. Here, between Christmas and New Year they have caught:

36 (26 retraps) Blue Tits, 5 (3 retraps) Great Tits, 3 Coal Tits, 6 (5 retraps) Long-tailed Tits, 1 Goldcrest, (1 retrap) Treecreeper, (1 retrap) Robin, and two Greenfinches.

They have also sent me a thermal photo of a Mouse sp hiding in a plastic tree cover (presumably sitting on the tree within).

We can see you

I'm not sure whether the shot was taken at Morton Bagot or at Alne Wood, but it certainly shows the potential of the kit.

Anyway, Happy New Year. I'll be tramping around Morton Bagot from the wee smallish hours tomorrow to get 2022 off to a good start.

Wednesday December 29 - kicking my heels

My Christmas break has been disrupted by toothache and the difficulty of getting a dentist to do anything about it, and the saga is ongoing.

Fortunately I do have a couple of items to share, both from yesterday. Tony went to Morton Bagot for a wander around  in the rain, counting 40 Teal and 40 Lapwings at the flash field, and a Stonechat, two Snipe, and three Jack Snipe in the marsh. Speaking of which, he kindly sent a photo from his phone which I have cropped to show here.

If you're struggling to see it, the Jack Snipe is roughly centre right, head and bill poking out of the grass over a patch of water. The original photograph covered a wider area and for about 10 minutes all I could see was grass. I thought he was having me on.

I stopped moth trapping at the end of October, but last night left the vestibule light on for a couple of hours and found two Winter Moths when I checked it a couple of hours later. This is a very common species with antifreeze in its blood allowing it to fly in cold conditions...or on a balmy winter night such as we are experiencing lately.

Anyway, the painkillers are working well and I should be out again soon.

Thursday December 23 - Morton Bagot....sort of

 This morning was gloomy and miserable, low misty cloud, and several bands of drizzle. I parked at the patch beneath Bannams Wood, glanced towards Morton Bagot and headed off in the opposite direction.

My wanderlust took me in the direction of Badbury Hill about a kilometre east of my usual stomping grounds. Why? Well I was just curious to see what was there.

It turned out that Heart of England Forest had got there first, and most of the land was the usual new trees and wide rides. However, there were a few agricultural areas beyond the hill, mostly involving fields of stubble and brassicas. 

Badbury Hill

If I wanted to see farmland birds (and I did) I was to be disappointed. The only birds interested in the brassica fields were over a hundred Woodpigeons. The stubble was pretty dead for birds, one Skylark. 

The woodlands contained all the biodiversity, but it was pretty much the usual stuff. Remarkable numbers of Blackbirds (41) out-numbered all the other thrushes, although these did include a Mistle Thrush. 

You can't beat a gnarly old tree trunk

I was hoping for buntings, but saw just one Reed Bunting. This is not to say I didn't enjoy the morning. Not a single dog-walker crossed my path, indeed no humans at all. I was truly getting away from it all.

The bad light meant that the camera stayed in my bag until I was almost back at Bannams Wood, but eventually I spent some time trying to get a shot of a Nuthatch.

Nuthatch

Finally, I thought I'd share a picture of a male Great Tit with a largely white tail which has been visiting the feeders in our garden.

When I first saw it at the beginning of November I thought it had lost some inner tail feathers making the white outers more prominent, but I now think it has a genuine plumage aberration. 

Tuesday December 21 - Tanworth-in-Arden

 The shortest day saw me picking a spot within the Circle more or less at random, and spending a couple of hours there. I was pretty sure I had never been to Tanworth-in-Arden, a very small and attractive village about four miles north-east of Redditch, but Birdtrack suggested otherwise.

This morning was grey and almost windless, there was supposed to be a very light easterly, and after parking near the church I walked a loop out towards Umberslade Farm and back through Danzey Green.

There were no real highlights apart from yet another Red Kite which was the only raptor I saw. But a flock of at least 265 Woodpigeons was an impressive sight, while 72 Redwings and 14 Greenfinches in the field and hedgerow beyond the doctor's house were worth recording.

Red Kite

The locals seemed pretty friendly and I had a nice chat with a dog-walker at the church. He asked me if I'd seen "the Redpolls", and in fact I did later hear one. He also mentioned that last year he had seen a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker on the feeders in his garden. It would be nice to think he had correctly identified it, and that the species is still present around there.

What else is out there in the wider countryside untouched by regular birders? 

Oh, I nearly forgot, I checked my Birdtrack records and my sole previous entry for Tanworth-in-Arden was a Cuckoo on 27 April 1988. Now my memory has been jogged I do vaguely remember stopping at the side of the road around here and hearing it. I wonder if one will still be around this spring.

Sunday December 19 - Fog

Fog's a bit of a killer for birding. Dave and I flogged around Morton Bagot more in hope than expectation, chuckling that our best bird was a Rabbit. You don't see many here.

Bloody fog

As for actual birds, we had a plan to locate Tony's Jack Snipe in the marsh, but that fell flat when all we disturbed were three Common Snipe. A couple of Stonechat were visible in the murk and a flock of 35 to 40 Siskins flew over. At the flash field we could barely see the nearest flash, but eventually spotted five Mallard and a Teal when they swam out of the gloom.

Creeping through Stapenhill Wood allowed us to marvel at the moss and lichen clinging to the limbs of storm damaged trees, but as we possess all the field craft of a couple of bull elephants we saw no birds of note.

I'd like to think that better days lie ahead.

Saturday December 18 - Ringing round up, and the Bittell conundrum

 Before I get to my own exploits, I will just report Tony's ringing results at Morton Bagot for a combination of Friday and this morning. They had a couple of pretty successful sessions, although over half of the birds handled were Blue Tits.

The full statistics with retraps in brackets were:

Blue Tit 107 (52)

Great Tit 16 (5)

Long-tailed Tit 11 (7)

Wren 1

Redwing 1

Robin 3 (2)

Greenfinch 8

Lesser Redpoll 6

Goldfinch 17 (1)

Tony also caught a Bullfinch and an extra Goldfinch which they couldn't ring because they were showing signs of the contagious bumblefoot, a scabbiness shown on the legs of birds which spend too much time feeding under feeders.

When not catching birds they noticed both Barn and Tawny Owl, and using his new bit of kit, a thermal monocular, five Jack Snipes.

Greenfinch - per T Kelly

Meanwhile, I was somewhere else entirely this morning. Lower Bittell Reservoir is on the north-west edge of The Circle, and is giving me sleepless nights. I really didn't want any part of the two Bittell reservoirs to be within the new patch area because they are too good for birds.

I know this makes little sense, but the problem is this. I have no intention of abandoning Morton Bagot, or any of the other marginal sites which are all firmly in the ring, but if the Bittell Reservoirs get in the mix, I'd be tempted to go there a lot. Fortunately, only Lower Bittell qualifies geographically so I suppose it will have to be included. It's good for ducks and smaller grebes, but doesn't pull in as many rarities and particularly waders as Upper Bittell.

Lower Bittell

Just to give you an idea of how good it is. I estimated a flock of 200 Siskins, and counted 250 Redwings. A Water Rail made its squealing call (although I couldn't see it), and on the water were 12 Little Grebes, 12 Gadwall, 27 Coot, 27 Tufted Ducks, 109 Black-headed Gulls, 20 Shovelers, 17 Wigeon, 15 Mute Swans, and 10 Cormorants. A Kingfisher called from the Mill Shrub, and I discovered a female Goldeneye near the dam of the main Lower reservoir. 

The Goldeneye

I'm concerned that banging on about the status of geese and ducks etc within the Circle might be interesting me and no one else! However, I can't bear to abandon the plan altogether, so I will be creating a new page with all that data available to anyone else who might like to see the whole history of the birds around here revealed.

The Bittell conundrum is that most published data refers simply to Bittell Reservoirs, and not to Upper and Lower as separate locations. This is understandable, but it means I am minded to leave the Bittell data out altogether for reasons of clarity.

I'll be back at Morton Bagot tomorrow trying to find these Jack Snipe.

Tuesday December 14 - Feckenham Wylde Moor

 I think there are eleven Worcestershire and Warwickshire Nature Trust reserves within The Circle, and this morning I decided to visit one of them. All of these reserves were established to protect a diminished fragment of natural habitat, and are therefore mainly of botanical or entomological interest. The nearest to being a bird reserve is Feckenham, and you can tell this because it has two hides no less.

The blurb on the Worcestershire Trusts website describes Feckenham Wylde Moor as a fen peat bog. It had been drained in 1850, but over the last 40 years valiant efforts have been made to restore it.

I made my way to the main hide and found it occupied by a lady birder. We each donned our face masks, resulting in instant fog as we both wore glasses. Before us was a small pool occupied by seven Mallard and nothing else.

Hide 1

I learned that the main attraction was the occasional appearance of a Kingfisher, but in the ten minutes before boredom set in none appeared. I decided to get out and start exploring. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the next two hours following the path through gloopy peat marsh, scanning the remarkably large reed beds, and then making careful progress through the alder woodland which surrounds the place.

The nearest I came to a "good bird" was a male Stonechat, but I could easily imagine all manner of marshland birds might reward regular visits.

Stonechat

Other birds seen included at least 20 Goldfinches, a few Siskins, a couple of Redpolls, and plenty of Redwings and Blackbirds.

Reserve management in action

The view from Hide 2

Once installed in the second hide I was not distracted by any birds, giving me the opportunity to contemplate how to shoehorn the next goose into my list of birds recorded within the Circle since the year dot. 

No I can't think of any good way to introduce:

Barnacle Goose - It is doubtful whether any of the Barnacle Geese seen since the first, at Hewell Lake on March 15 1975, can be considered to be anything other than an escape.

Each winter thousands head into western Scotland from the arctic, while thousands more winter in the low countries. Some of the latter make the hop across the North Sea into East Anglia, particularly in cold weather, and it is these birds which might just have occurred naturally within the Circle.

The best candidates are a party of 24 discovered at Earlswood Lakes on December 6 1980. There had been an influx into eastern Britain at the time and surely these birds were part of the movement. Unfortunately they were described as being rather tame, and remained in ever diminishing numbers until March 4 1981. Let's just say the jury is out.

Barnacle Geese, as well as being frequent escapes, also breed in parts of England, and perhaps the flock of 10 seen flying over the M42 near Hopwood on June 7 1998 were feral birds rather than being part of a mass break out from a collection.

Since the first published record, singles or pairs were seen at various waters within the Circle in most years between 1979 and 1997, and again in most years from 2008 to 2019. 

My only Morton Bagot record flew over in a flock of Canada Geese on September 18 2016. Obviously wild....ahem.

Sunday December 12

A flush of milder weather and some welcome sunshine greeted me and Dave at Morton Bagot this morning. 

As December days go, this was a reasonably good one for birding. The hedgerows still have sufficient berries to encourage at least 40 Redwings and a dozen or so Fieldfares and Blackbirds to remain to enjoy the feast. We also counted five Stonechats, which is an apparent increase on the last few visits.

Stonechat

Robin

Fieldfare

One group of birds which are not suited to the generating woodland at Morton Bagot in winter are the finches and buntings. Actually it should be OK for Lesser Redpolls, but we only heard one. Also in single figures were Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Siskins, Goldfinches, Linnets, and Reed Buntings, a far cry from the site's more agricultural past when there could be thousands of finches present.

A lone Reed Bunting

We later met Tony who was putting out seed feeders to boost his catch when he starts ringing later this week. That should increase the finch population for a while.

We reached the flash field, which initially appeared pretty birdless. About five Teal skulked on the furthest flash. Our luck improved when a flock of 70 to 80 Lapwings appeared overhead, and shortly afterwards a Red Kite flapped over, pursued by a few angry corvids.

Lapwings

Red Kite

I saw a Red Kite on Thursday over Winyates on my way back from the chemist, so this could be the same one. Although they are rapidly losing their rarity status, any day that contains a sighting of a Kite is a good day.

I nearly forgot. We also saw an adult Peregrine on one of the pylons.

Thursday December 9 - Austy Wood and The View

 It's been a bit of a frustrating week. Strong winds and gales on the days I might have got out, and other commitments when the weather behaved itself. This morning I finally donned my wellies, grabbed my bins, and took advantage of a calmer day to do some more exploring.

In the last few years a restaurant called The View has been established on the west side of the busy A45 just south of Wootton Wawen, and it provides an excellent place to park. It overlooks a small canal marina. So parking there, I walked back down the track which bisects a large sheep pasture until I got to the main road.

It was all a bit mundane as far as birds are concerned, a flock of 54 Redwings, three Fieldfares, and a Mistle Thrush on one side of the track, and 25 Starlings, a Kestrel, and a Buzzard on the other.

Once I'd crossed the main road I found the footpath which runs across a newly planted field, which is the closest you can get to Austy Wood. The field contained a few Pied Wagtails, and two Grey Wagtails, while the wood is mostly coniferous and looked pretty birdless. Eventually I spotted a Sparrowhawk, a Raven, and a few Siskins.

The edge of Austy Wood

Time to digress. Where would you go in the Circle if you wanted to see a Canada Goose? Well of course pretty much anywhere, even the marina below The View contained a pair this morning. However, this state of affairs was not always the case, which brings me to:

Canada Goose - Introduced into the UK during the nineteenth century, they were scarce in Warwickshire and Worcestershire until well into the twentieth. The date of the first record in the Circle is unclear, but the earliest I can find refers to a pair breeding at Tardebigge Reservoir in 1939 AJMartin. AJHarthan writing in 1946 referred to breeding pairs at Hewell Grange and at Tardebigge Resevoir. The first fully dated record I can find relates to a pair found breeding at Hewell Grange on May 21 1947, and since then breeding sites have included Arrow Valley Lake, Earlswood, Wythall, Shortwood Roughs, Lodge Pool, Lower Park Farm, Morton Bagot, Tardebigge, Hewell, and Batchley Pond. 

The numbers seen remained modest in the 1950s and 1960s, with peaks of 63 at Hewell Grange in September 1956, and 55 at "Redditch" on November 20 1969. This last record was before work on Arrow Valley Lake had been completed, but may still relate to the partly constructed lake.

Each subsequent decade saw more and more Canada Geese being counted leading to the two largest counts in recent years, 312 at Earlswood in October 2013, and 320 over Redditch on September 23 2017.

There seems to be every chance that this most boring of species will continue to increase its numbers in the future.

More interesting birds are available.

Sunday December 5

 I was back at Morton Bagot this morning with Dave, seeing nothing as usual. Well obviously not nothing, but the grey skies and cold northerly breeze made the going pretty tough.

In my absence a flock of 80 or so Stock Doves has formed, outnumbering the Woodpigeons by eight to one. The other species present in substantial numbers were Redwings. We logged 118 in the hedgerows and just two Fieldfares.

Redwing

We had a couple of plans intended to spice things up. To begin with we walked along the road to Bannams Wood, the less said the better. Then we walked through the pool field hoping to flush a Jack Snipe. We had to settle for a couple of Common Snipe. The flash field contained just 27 Teal, two Stonechats, and 15 Black-headed Gulls.

All I can say is thank goodness for my new Circle project. One part of that involves researching all the birds to have occurred therein over the last 200 years. I'm nothing if not thorough. So with that in mind, where should I go if I wanted to see a Brent Goose around here? Bittell and Upton Warren are disqualified for being outside the Circle, and that leaves little grounds for optimism. But they have turned up, and the last place this happened was Box Trees near Hockley Heath. So that's where I went on Friday.

As far as Brent Goose goes I dipped. I was 15 years too late. But I was interested to see the site which gets Golden Plovers in most winters. It's basically a massive stubble field which on my visit contained nothing better than 10 Skylarks, 65 Rooks, and 32 Woodpigeons. Far away at the back of the field was a straggling line of Roe Deer. 

A very big field.

Roe Deer

This kind of huge stubble field is quite rare around here, so it was worth a look. No doubt if I'd been brave enough to trespass into the stubble the small bird count would have shot up.

Brent Goose - Four records.

The first I can find is one which was recorded by F Coburn as having been shot at Earlswood on November 6 1897. Almost exactly a hundred years later one was found grazing on a football pitch at Arrow Valley Park on February 3 1997 by N Evans, what a sight that must have been. The third was a first winter bird found by Alan Dean at Earlswood on January 13 2002. Finally, the most recent was one found by Mike Inskip at Box Trees on December 27 2006.

All my data is sourced from the West Midland Bird Club annual reports or from published sources such as "Notes on the Birds of Warwickshire" published in 1947 and written by C A Norris.

I do have a sneaky postscript though. Back in about 2011 (pre Blog) I was visiting Morton Bagot and got talking to a chap wearing bins. Anything about? I asked. Rather startlingly he replied that a week earlier he had flushed what he was pretty sure was a Brent Goose (it might have been two), from the side of the pool. I hoped he would submit the record, but maybe he didn't because it has not appeared in print. I believe the date was in November. 

Not everyone submits their records to the County Recorder, and that's certainly their prerogative, but it always strikes me as a shame when the opportunity to add to ornithological history is missed.

Wednesday December 1 - The Thrift

 This morning, to continue the recent theme, I headed due west to the edge of the Circle and a one km square occupied by a wood called The Thrift. It felt like exploring, but when I came to add my records I found I'd been there three times in spring 1997.

The Thrift

As you can see, the area is 50% mixed woodland, and 50% farmland (half arable and half pasture). What the map doesn't convey is that it was also quite hilly.

I enjoyed my winter walk even though the birdy offerings were pretty much as expected. I made counts of 90 Redwings, 19 Blackbirds, 42 Goldfinches, 10 Siskins, and 19 Lesser Redpolls for example.

Common Buzzard

The Thrift

The highlights came at the end of the walk. The small copse shown at the northern edge of the map contained a mixed flock of Siskins and Goldfinches, but also a Brambling. This called several times, but despite my best efforts I was unable to see it. Walking away from the wood after giving up, I was pleased to see a flock of 40 Skylarks flying over one of the arable fields. This is the first substantial lark flock I've seen this winter.

The fact that I can't remember my previous visits to the Thrift has made me look at these visits some 25 years ago. One seems to have been a casual reference to the presence of Buzzards as I walked from Feckenham passed the wood. More significantly another was an April visit where I listed just a few highlights, but these included six Tree Sparrows. 

It just goes to show that although Tree Sparrows were good enough to reach my notebook in 1997, the fact that they have not remained in my memory suggests that they were no big deal back then. They would be now. Morton Bagot lost its Tree Sparrows in 2011/2012, and I suspect they went from all around here at the same time. One thing I hope to establish in my expanded area of interest is whether any have hung on, unnoticed in some neglected part of the Circle. I can think of several other "lost" species it would be worth looking out for.

I expect to be back at Morton Bagot at the weekend.