Sunday December 31 - Good things come to those who wait.

 I had expected this posting to be the traditional review of the year kind of thing, but today's visit to Morton Bagot was too impressive to ignore.

It began unpromisingly. Heavy showers had dampened Dave's enthusiasm by the time I finally arrived. Nevertheless we took advantage of a brief cessation in the bloody awful weather and headed northwards from Netherstead.

At the scrape field the scrapes were awash. There was enough water for 47 Mallard to dabble in, and enough pasture for a Stonechat and about 10 Meadow Pipits. We chose not to enter, but instead to make our way to the flash field. A large flock of thrushes was assessed as containing 230 Redwings, 40 Starlings, and at least 20 Fieldfares. The scope was erected but no amount of scanning could produce anything rarer.

Looking across the flash field we could see the usual Teal (Dave counted 27), and a less usual flock of Greylag Geese. At some point in the next half hour I thought I saw a smaller goose among these geese. We wisely headed back up the slope to scope the furthest flash. The geese were feeding to the right of the flash and were hard to see properly. I had in mind Mark Islip's sighting of a White-front at Arrow Valley Lake earlier in the week.

From a higher vantage point we were in a position to at least count the Greylags (37...Dave again). At last I picked out a smaller, dark goose among the Greylags. For ages it wouldn't put its head up, or would be obscured by other geese. I was hogging the scope, only giving Dave his turn when I got a clear enough view to call it a White-fronted Goose. We switched positions, Dave having his chance to see the bird, while I wondered how best to get a shot of it. 

Eventually I headed down the slope, closer to the trees, from where I had a big enough gap to give me a chance. Without the scope it was much harder to find the bird, but eventually I did so.

"Russian" White-fronted Goose with three Greylags

Dave was far behind me on top of the rise, anxious not to lose the goose. This was unfortunate, because it meant he didn't hear the Water Rail which squealed from the marsh.

Around this time I received some Twitter messages from Mark Williams and Andy Harris. Evidently Mark had visited Morton Bagot on Friday, and on his way home had discovered a Short-eared Owl near Wawensmere Road. He hoped it might still be in the area. 

I went back to encourage Dave to join me at a slightly better position half way down the slope. From here the views of the geese were better, although I only managed one more shot of the White-front with its head up.

White-fronted Goose

As far as we could see, the bird lacked black belly markings and didn't have a very clear white "front", leading us to conclude it was a juvenile/first-winter bird. I rang Mark and he confirmed that the Arrow Valley Lake bird was also a juvenile. Clearly it was the same goose.

The reason I'm going on a bit about this bird is that there has only been one here before. That was an adult I had seen in flight in November 2011, twelve years ago.

With the rain pepping up again we decided to head back, crossing the middle of the fields, hoping to flush the Short-eared Owl. We didn't succeed, but did kick up several Snipe and a Woodcock.

The White-fronted Goose becomes the 143rd species on my Circle year-list, and now is the time for a quick canter through the year's highlights.

The best find was a moth! The Clancy's Rustic in my garden trap in late September was the first for both Warwickshire and the wider West Midlands. Butterflies also got in on the act, with Brown Hairstreaks at Morton Bagot and in my garden in August/September.

Clancy's Rustic

Brown Hairstreak in the garden

As far as birds go, there wasn't really a true stand-out. There were plenty of good birds though. The Kittiwake we found dead in February was the only species which was new for Morton Bagot, but a Goshawk in August was the first since 2012, and today's White-fronted Goose was the first since 2011. Other quality birds at Morton Bagot were two Quails (June and September), a Wood Sandpiper in August, and a Garganey in September.

Further afield the Nordic Jackdaw near Hockley Heath earlier this month was my first in the West Midlands, the Tundra Bean Goose of dubious provenance at Shortwood Roughs was a Circle Patch tick, and three Rock Pipits at Earlswood joined some good twitched birds there; Common Scoters, Little Gull, Mediterranean Gull, and Sandwich Tern. The last of these also being a Circle patch tick for me.

Sandwich Tern at Earlswood

I would just like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and hope we all find plenty of good birds to keep us going in 2024.

Thursday December 28 - weekly round-up

 My birding this week has been affected by events. Obviously Christmas Day was out of the question, but a sunny Boxing Day morning saw me heading for Beoley for some more exploration. I parked at St Laurence's Church and strolled northwards.

There is a place of interest there, it's described in the WMBC Annual Report as Rose Cottage. I've been quite curious to see what the draw was, and during the spring I heard from Josh Toogood. He mentioned a rough area and found a pair of Stonechats breeding. I believe I found the place quite quickly and was very impressed by the habitat.

It was a very large field of rough grassland, and I could just imagine a Short-eared Owl hunting over it. The downside was a fence, the shadow of which can be seen in the photo. There is clearly no access to most of the site, and I saw absolutely nothing on my visit.

Instead I wandered further up the road before diverting into the fields on a long looping walk. The highlights were a singing Mistle Thrush, decent numbers of Redwings, and a Kingfisher on the pool at Beoley Hall.

Kingfisher 

This morning I was less ambitious. Lyn has tweaked a muscle so my morning was restricted to a quick visit to my sister in Tidbury Green (they had seen a Rose-ringed Parakeet on their feeder on Christmas Day) followed by a wander around a modern housing estate at Cheswick Green in the hope of finding some Waxwings.

Predictably the Parakeet was a no show, but Cheswick Green did produce an unexpected surprise. Not a Waxwing, I couldn't even find any berry-laden shrubs, but instead a Stonechat.

Stonechat

The bird was on the fence of a boardwalk which crossed a man-made ditch/channel which is similar to one I have seen at Tidbury Heights. I'm not sure what function these pools perform but they seem popular with the planners of these modern villages. I'm certainly not complaining.

The rest of the walk was less inspiring, several parties of Starlings and Goldfinches, and one small party of Redpolls which flew over.

Time has almost run out for any local Waxwings this year, but it was always odds-on that I wouldn't see any until later in the winter....fingers crossed.

Sunday December 24 - Morton Bagot

 Quite a gang of us met up at Morton Bagot this morning. Tony, Leigh, Dave and myself were keen to see what we could find in the mud and gloom of a dull December day. Tony had brought his thermal imager along and was keen to show us what it could achieve.

The first noteworthy bird owed nothing to the technology. I spotted a rather small Peregrine as it approached from the direction of Bannams Wood. Size is very difficult to assess for a lone bird against a grey sky, but our impression suggested it would be likely to be a male.

A little further on the thermal imager spotted a heat source in a hedgerow tree. We eventually established it was a Grey Squirrel. A bit of a disappointment, but scanning the field behind us I spotted a female Stonechat, and later on we spotted the Barn Owl roosting in its usual spot.

Stonechat

We finally reached the scrape field (formerly pool field)  and followed Tony and his imager as he slowly picked his way across. After about ten minutes he beckoned us over and pointed to the base of some sedges on the opposite side of a small flooded scrape. A Jack Snipe was crouching in plain sight, except that without knowing it was there you'd have walked straight past it.

The Jack Snipe

Carefully picking our way through the sedge and rushes we flushed 17 Common Snipe, and a near record 10 Jack Snipe.  By now the wind was getting up, dashing any hopes of Tony catching any of them. I have no plans to disturb them again except for a monthly count.

We reached the Flash field and saw 39 Teal and 15 Mallard before Dave got an unsettling text. There was a drake Smew at his other patch, Marsh Lane GP, and he wasted no time in  showing us a clean pair of heels. I hear he successfully twitched it.

The last hour was spoilt by increasingly frequent showers and we added nothing much more to the day's list.

Finally I just want to wish a Merry Xmas to everyone who reads this blog. 

Friday December 22 - Mapping

 Another December week comes to a close without me having much to show for it. To stave off any despondency I have developed a strategy of local birding which involves counting and mapping the distribution of birds wintering locally. It is pretty much the same as taking part in BTO Atlas work, but I may be too old and knackered (or dead) by the time the BTO announces the next one, so why wait? 

In fact my own survey maps birds to one square kilometre level, not tetrads. So in theory it should be more detailed.

Here is the coverage of two winter's fieldwork.

Purple squares are winter visits, grey squares are summer only

Obviously my presentation is about as low-tech as you can get, but you can see that I have been birding nearly everywhere in my Circle since the 2021/22 winter.

On Wednesday my latest two purple squares were at Alcester Heath, just west of King's Coughton. It was a cloudy morning with periods of rain, so no photos were taken. Once again it was largely on arable farmland. I counted about 500 winter thrushes which were about 50/50 Redwings and Fieldfares, and just a handful of Yellowhammers, Linnets, and Red-legged Partridges. 

I thought I'd show you my Yellowhammer map as it neatly demonstrates how their distribution seems to be slipping to the south and south-east edge of the Circle. 

The hatched circle is the approximate position of Redditch

The interesting thing for me is the absence of Yellowhammers from the farmland to the north of Redditch. Obviously these are just my own records and I've only covered two winters so far. In other words it's a work in progress, and I remain hopeful that more will be found.

I plan to keep at it for eight more winters to get a full picture.

What about the year list? Well I'm still doing one, and I missed a potential tick yesterday. While Lyn and I were sitting in a restaurant in Stratford, Mark Islip was discovering a White-fronted Goose at Arrow Valley Lake. I just about made it to the lake by dusk, but the bird had left to the south at 16.00. It had been with the Tundra Bean Goose which is still resident at Upper Bittell (just outside my Circle), so maybe it has been there.

With no further news this morning I decided to head down to the Kinwarton area for a final attempt to add Little Owl to my list. There was again no sign of it. It's amazing how this species has disappeared locally without anyone really noticing. Twenty years ago you just took it for granted that you would see two or three a year without making any particular effort.

I also strolled around Alcester hoping to find some Waxwings. I couldn't find any, so it looks as though my year-list will not advance beyond the 142 species it has been stuck on since the Goldeneye at Earlswood at the beginning of last month.

Monday December 18 - The arable edge

 My circular patch, centred on our home in east Redditch, contains a variety of different habitats. Woodlands, suburbia, and pasture are all well catered for. Wetlands are present but unspectacular. Least well represented is arable farmland. 

This wasn't always the case, but I guess there are economic pressures which have led to its local demise. Where it does exist, it's usually intensively managed and not as attractive to wildlife as it once was. Of all the farmland birds in the Circle, the most heavily reliant on arable farmland is the Yellowhammer, and I'm finding them increasingly hard to find.

The majority are at the south-east edge of the patch, places like Alcester Heath, Kinwarton, and Aston Cantlow. Alas, they've virtually gone from Morton Bagot where ten years ago they were plentiful. 

Today I set out to explore farmland to the east of Henley to see if I could find any there. The rain abated just as I parked the car in Buckley Green and trudged eastwards. I was pleased to find ploughed fields as soon as I reached the top of the escarpment which runs north/south to the east of the river Alne.

A nice flock of 70+ Redwings with a few Fieldfares, Chaffinches, and Starlings was a good sign. Then a little further on I came across two Red Kites near Ireland's Farm. This species is heading in completely the opposite direction to Yellowhammer, and it may end up rivalling Common Buzzard in local abundance in not too many years time. For now though, they are still scarce enough to be considered noteworthy.

Red Kites

Ireland's Farm proved to be a little gem. A couple of Kestrels came together in a tangle of wings and talons, before one flew off having made its point. 

Then I realised I could hear Yellowhammers. It turned out that the scruffy extended farmyard just north of the farm buildings was full of chirping passerines. Working out exactly how many proved difficult as I assumed I couldn't just wander in. However, I estimated 25 Chaffinches, a dozen or so House Sparrows, a few Redpolls, and seven Yellowhammers.

Yellowhammer

I ploughed on towards Bush Wood, passing another recently seeded crop field full of winter thrushes and this time several Meadow Pipits. Unfortunately a thick roadside hedge prevented me from making a proper count.

Looking west from Bush Wood

I have to admit there were parts of the walk which were pretty poor. I had hoped that Bush Wood would prove interesting, but as I was skirting the windy western edge I saw very little. The best on offer was a party of 11 Lesser Redpolls, and a separate group of 25 Siskins.

I'm plotting my next outing to the arable edge of the circle to see what I can find. Maybe the area west of Alcester will be worth a look.

You can't beat exploring in winter.

Morton Bagot - Sunday December 17

 I've had a slightly frustrating week of domesticity (washing machine woes) interspersed with unsatisfactory local birding. The latter included a visit to Tardebigge Reservoir and the farmland immediately south of it, and a Waxwing-less slog around Crabb's Cross and Headless Cross in Redditch.

Meadow Pipits near Tardebigge Res

The Waxwings are getting closer. I've heard of singles at Shirley in West Midlands and Fenny Compton in south-east Warwickshire, with small parties in Warwick and Malvern Link.

Meanwhile Morton Bagot was covered by the ringers during the week, with a fly-over Great White Egret on Friday, and up to seven Jack Snipe, one of which was trapped.

Dave and I gave Morton Bagot our attention this morning, and did fairly well. We flushed five Jack Snipe, and 18 Common Snipe from what I believe HOEF now call the wader scrape (or field 156), and also watched a Kingfisher at some distance. Meanwhile the flash field remains out of bounds and pretty dull, we scoped 13 Lapwings and seven Teal.

Shocking record shot of a Jack Snipe

The Kingfisher

There also seemed to be good numbers of thrushes and Starlings in evidence, but they have eaten most of the berries on offer and will probably be moving to pastures new (or just feeding on earthworms in the pasture) before long. We counted 135 Fieldfares, 90 Redwings, and 175 Starlings today.

Fieldfare

We also noticed that a pair of Stonechats included a ringed male. Unfortunately I didn't spot this until I downloaded the photo. Tony has been colour-ringing Stonechats this autumn, but I can only see a metal ring on the image (only one leg is visible).

Stonechat sporting a ring

Arguably our best find came as we walked alongside Stapenhill Wood and flushed a Woodcock. It showed quite well in flight in the seconds before it disappeared. My understanding from Tony is that about five were seen feeding at night during last week.

The ringing produced the following on Friday:

Jack Snipe 1

Blue Tit 66 (28)

Great Tit 11 (4)

Long-tailed Tit 7 (7)

Goldcrest 1

Song Thrush 2

Robin 2 (2)

Dunnock 1

Lesser Redpoll 35

Goldfinch 4

The Lesser Redpolls included a borderline Mealy/Lesser which was recorded as the latter. On measurements it was in the overlap zone.

Redpoll sp

Lesser Redpolls get paler as winter progresses, and sorting out any potential Mealies gets even more difficult.

Just one more birding weekend to Christmas. Can I have a Waxwing please?

Sunday December 10 - mostly Morton Bagot

 Dave and I had a one hour window of dry weather to splash around Morton Bagot this morning before the rain arrived with a vengeance. Highlights were a Kingfisher at the garden pool at Clowse Farm (viewed from the road), a Green Sandpiper flushed from Kingfisher Pool, and a Stonechat in the usual spot at the top of the field behind the pool. The latter had swelled with rain water, but contained only a couple of Mallard. The flash field harboured 50 Mallard, 14 Teal, and five Lapwings.

The cloudy weather didn't encourage me to get the camera out, but fortunately I had benefitted from a phone call from Tony and Leigh on Saturday afternoon. They had been strolling around Arrow Valley Lake and had come across a Pintail. It's only five minutes from my house, so I joined them and got some shots.

Pintail at Arrow Valley Lake

It was quite a windy afternoon, but the only other noteworthy species were at least eight Goosanders.

Tony had also been stumbling around Morton Bagot in the dark on Thursday night spotting at least five or six Woodcocks with his night vision binoculars. He also dazzled and caught three Woodcocks and a Jack Snipe, and has kindly shared a picture of the latter.

Jack Snipe in the hand on Thursday night

Returning to this morning's effort, we reckoned that Redwings were present in smaller numbers than last weekend. They have almost finished stripping the hedgerows of berries, so I guess that once again no Waxwings will be encouraged to give us a look this winter.

And finally, back home in Winyates East I discovered that our regular visiting Blackcap is in fact two Blackcaps. The camera was fished out in an attempt to get both birds in shot. Unfortunately they weren't particularly matey, so you'll have to peer closely at the next photo to see both birds.

Here's a clue; top right and bottom left

They did come a lot closer....but not together.

Blackcap A

Blackcap B

These birds will have come from central Europe for the winter. A case of evolution in action as wintering Blackcaps have learnt to exploit gardens over the course of the last fifty or so years. It's all in the genes.

Friday December 8 - Keep checking the Jackdaws

 This morning, with more bad weather forecast for the weekend, I decided to take advantage of favourable conditions and head for another village/town on the outskirts of my Circle. I parked in Hockley Heath and walked a substantial circuit which took me westwards to Big Spring Coppice and then back via pasture to the south of Box Trees. My big hope was to find some Waxwings in the town, but although I did locate some excellent cotoneaster bushes, the Waxwings seem not to have got here yet.

The route chosen still produced about 40 species including a few Meadow Pipits, over 100 Starlings, and lots of corvids. Fortunately I'm a bit of a nerd, so was quite happy to keep a running count for Birdtrack, including the Rooks and Jackdaws. Having already counted a flock of 112 Jackdaws near Big Spring Coppice, I noticed a similar number in a sheep field near a place marked on my map as The Barn (Motel). 

Immediately one bird stood out as different from all the rest. It had an obvious white line along the lower border of its grey shawl. I had at last found a Nordic Jackdaw. So why the italics? Well this is not a species, it is the nominate race of Jackdaw, Corvus monedula monedula. The British and Western European birds are of the race spermologus, but the guy who supplied the first latin names lived in Sweden in the eighteenth century, so Carl von Linne (Linnaeus) was only familiar with nordic Jackdaws, and they were the first to be named (nominate).

Nordic Jackdaw

Initially the bird was quite close, but as soon I had snapped its picture for the record, the group it was in flew away into the next field. I set off in pursuit and although it was now in a larger flock, the bird was quite easy to relocate.

Nordic Jackdaw standing out from the crowd

Although more distant and not very sharp, this second shot gives a better impression of how distinctive it was.

I have only ever knowingly seen two Nordic Jackdaws before, and they were present in a field in Norfolk in February 1997. I reread my notes on them and it appears I wasn't all that impressed, noting that the white streak at the bottom of the shawl was only really obvious when the birds were facing you. The same cannot be said about today's bird which was easily picked out from any angle.

I've done a bit of reading up on the sub-species since I got home, and it appears that not all nordic Jackdaws are this obvious. The Norwegian birds look very like ours, which may suggest that this bird came from Sweden. When you go even further east, Finland and beyond, the race Soemmerringii occurs, and has a very distinct white collar, but is also a shade bulkier than the nominate race. 

I had thought there was just one previous record within my Circle, found by Mike Inskip at Middle Spernal in 2015, but Jim Winsper has since let me know he saw one at Box Trees, close to where today's bird was, during BTO Atlas work in the winter of 1980/81. The odd one gets recorded in the West Midlands in most years, and it is quite likely that more occur but cannot be identified because they are too similar to the British Jackdaws.

As the old saying goes, it only takes one bird to brighten your day. 

Wednesday December 6 - Sometimes its just hard going

 I can't lie, it's been a challenging few days. On Sunday Dave and I splashed around Morton Bagot in misty, drizzly conditions ....again, and saw next to nothing. The ringers had been trying their best in the frost of Friday and Saturday, and had caught around 100 birds, but most of them were Tits, and half of those were re-traps.

Netherstead (Morton Bagot) before the weather really got bad

For the next two days it rained and I hunkered down at home.

Finally, on Wednesday, the sun shone. Where did I choose to go? Drake's Cross. Not an obvious place to look for birds, but for the last few weeks I have been playing it cool Waxwing-wise. Meanwhile almost every county in the UK has had at least one. The exceptions are Surrey, Wiltshire, and yes Worcestershire. 

So the plan was to lay the ghost and find a Waxwing. After a couple of hours tramping the streets I found one or two promising berry-laden bushes but no Waxwings. Ah, the frustration of it all. 

Compensations were few. A single Redpoll flew over, a small party of Siskins, and in a horse paddock just south of the suburb a Little Egret did its best to hide behind a fence.

Little Egret

My route took me to Grimes Hill and back to Drake's Cross alongside some fields which were largely a series of horse paddocks.

Female Pied Wagtail in winter garb

So no luck today, but I was breaking new ground geographically speaking. Maybe next time my luck will turn.

PS: Ringing stats from Morton Bagot as follows:

Blue Tit 63 (31)

Great Tit 16 (11)

Long-tailed Tit 1 (1)

Goldcrest 2 (1)

Wren 2

Robin 1 (1)

Redwing 8

Blackbird 1

Dunnock 3 (2)

Greenfinch 7

Lesser Redpoll 18

Goldfinch 3

Friday December 1 - Wandering again

 Somewhat ironically, despite spending about six hours in the field this week my highlight came yesterday afternoon as I was about to start washing the dishes. I looked up to see a Woodcock perfectly silhouetted against the early evening sky as it flew past the kitchen window. Beat that.

Tuesday certainly didn't come close. In a dogged space-filling exercise I headed down to Holberrow Green to see what I could find. Birdtrack told me I had been there once before, in the 1990s, and apparently saw a Little Owl and a Fieldfare. I have no recollection whatever of this, but the former would have been very welcome this week.

As it was, I saw a fly-over Redpoll and a flock of 17 Meadow Pipits, before hearing Blackbirds mobbing something (probably a Tawny Owl) in a wooded ridge from where I took a scenic shot.

The view from near Morton Hall

Today I headed back down to the south of my Circle to resume my acquaintance with Kinwarton. There was square kilometre just south of the dovecote for which I had no records. It yielded a party of 26 Siskins and not much else.

More interesting was the small pool by the dovecote. Given that it was very cold following a sharp overnight frost, I had expected it to be ice-bound. But no, the trill of a Little Grebe alerted me to the fact it was actually ice-free. A small group of Mallard, and a few Moorhens were standard fare, although the sight of a group of Black-headed Gulls perched on some overhead wires was quite arresting. Eventually I also heard a calling Cetti's Warbler, but despite giving it twenty minutes with my feet slowly turning to ice, it barely showed. I had to settle for a brief flight view (naked eye) and a couple of song bursts. At least a couple of Wrens showed well.

Black-headed Gulls

Little Grebe

Wren

I walked northwards for a while, hoping to see a Little Owl which I had connected with last year. Unfortunately it was not showing and its beginning to look like I'm not going to see one this year.

Back near the Dovecote I counted seven Grey Herons and 10 Lapwings in a grassy field, presumably hunting for earthworms. One of the Herons was in a ditch at the back of the field, and clearly had its eye on something larger.

Grey Heron

Starving Lapwings

This cold snap might be promising for birders, but it could be disastrous for some of the birds I saw today if it carries on for another week.