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.