Tuesday December 3 - Some exploring, and a quick twitch

 Today was largely sunny with not much breeze. I decided to spend the morning investigating fields between Packwood Hall and Hockley Heath at the north-eastern edge of my Circle. I didn't expect to see much, but it was actually quite enjoyable.

I parked opposite Fetherston House after the very friendly owner confirmed he had no problem with that. Straight away I was watching a decent flock of 75 Redwings and a variety of other small birds.

At this point I heard the unmistakeable call of a Parakeet coming from trees near where I'd parked the car. It turned out to be in the back garden of Fetherston House, and the owner confirmed he had seen a pair of Ring-necked Parakeets visiting his feeders regularly since last autumn. He invited me into his garden, but the parakeet had fallen silent and I didn't actually see it.

I resumed my original walk down the footpath and found a field containing 25 Pied Wagtails, two Grey Wagtails, and two Meadow Pipits. 

Back home I was resigned to that being the end of my day's birding, but mid-afternoon Paul Hands posted a photo of a Whooper Swan he had seen on the balancing lake on Arden Forest Way in Alcester.

I was unable to resist going to see it, and found it was still there, sharing the tiny lake with a pair of Mute Swans. A dog-walker had allowed her two dogs off the leash and they were haring around as I arrived, causing the Whooper Swan  to honk nervously.

Fortunately it was otherwise undisturbed and very photogenic.

A nice end to the day.

Sunday December 1 - Morton Bagot

 The omens were not good today. I met Dave at the patch in pouring rain and we trudged soggily towards the ringer's favoured area with a distinct shortage of optimism. A little further on a Blackbird alarm call caused us to check out the other side of the hedge we were walking down, and we were very pleased to locate a rather soggy (and possibly pissed off) Tawny Owl.

We left the Owl where it was and continued northwards. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad visit after all. 

The scrape field contained a herd of cows spread right across it. This rather put us off any thoughts of looking for Jack Snipe, but I later found out that the ringers had caught one yesterday.

Jack Snipe - Tony and Leigh Kelly

Dave was rather hoping that last Monday's Great White Egret might still be around, but as we approached the flash field there was no sign of it. In fact all we saw was 24 very nervous Teal, a few Mallard, and four Lapwings. However, as we started on the return journey a couple of adult Herring Gulls and a single adult Common Gull flew east. The latter was only the second here this year.

On reaching Stapenhill Wood, Dave proposed we made our way through it in the hope of a Woodcock. I have since heard that the ringers also caught one of those yesterday somewhere on the site.

We were unsuccessful, and became hopelessly separated after Dave opted for the much more challenging brookside route. After a while we could only communicate by phone, and it turned out that Dave had picked the right option. He rang to say he was watching a Hawfinch by Netherstead Farm (as its now called). I made my way towards him, but was too late.

We slowly searched for it, but after about twenty minutes we'd pretty much given up. Virtually back at our cars Dave scanned the bushes back where we'd come from and found it. This time I at least saw it, but it was miles away. It appeared to be with another bird, which I speculated might be another one. To resolve the issue I zoomed the camera up to the max and peered at the image. It turned out that the other bird was a Fieldfare.

The photograph I took was frankly horrible, but just as a record I present it now.

Heavily cropped, the Hawfinch is on the right

I decided to try for a closer image, but only got halfway down the footpath before it took off and flew in a long arc across the fields before disappearing in the direction of the village.

Getting back into my car I looked up at the nearest pylon and found it now contained an adult Peregrine.

The weather had improved considerably and there seemed to be more birds about, but our time had run out.

I'll leave you with Saturday's ringing totals.

Woodcock 1

Jack Snipe 1

Coal Tit 1

Blue Tit 29 (14 retraps)

Great Tit 6 (3)

Long-tailed Tit 4 (4)

Wren 2 (2)

Treecreeper 1

Robin 2 (2)

Blackbird 1

Fieldfare 2

Song Thrush 2

Dunnock 1 (1)

Greenfinch 1

Lesser Redpoll 1