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.