Sunday November 6 - The pox has arrived

 This morning's visit to Morton Bagot began with fog and ended with rain, but the intervening period was pretty ideal for birding. We chose to walk along the road before heading down the footpath to the pool field, which is starting to look promising. The highlight here was the first Jack Snipe since January, but we chose not to disturb it again after accidentally flushing it. We also kicked up five Common Snipe, one of which was later showing on the flash field.

Common Snipe

We counted 17 Lapwings and six Teal there, and also noticed a dead goose. This possible sign of Avian Flu was compounded by the presence of a single Greylag Goose which crash-landed into the Kingfisher Pool where it proceeded to swim around, flicking its head repeatedly. I suppose it was inevitable that Bird Flu would get here eventually. Beyond asking DEFRA to collect the corpses (and I gather they need prodding by the land-owner to do so) there is not much to be done.

As it happened we met the owner of the Kingfisher Pool, Sally Walton from Castle Farm, and had a very interesting conversation with her. It seems that a much photographed Little Owl on her land has, like the Morton Bagot Little Owl, disappeared this year.

Other birds seen today included many thrushes, and a Stonechat. 

Stonechat with grass stem spoiling the shot

Finches remain thin on the ground, but we did notice about 30 Siskins and a dozen Goldfinches along the Morton Brook.

Goldfinch and Siskin

Pied Wagtail on the pool field scrapes

We didn't really count the Redwings and Fieldfares, but I would guess at about 100 of the former and 25 of the latter.

The highlight of the weekend though was Alvechurch beating League One Cheltenham Town 2 : 1. Up the 'church. In my teens I used to go to Lye Meadow to watch them play, and the village was where I was brought up. 

Nowadays wildlife takes precedent but I appreciate the team's fantastic achievement.