Friday August 22 - Morton Bagot and Earlswood weekly round up

 The lack of posts this week reflects a rather quiet week, or at least it was for me. My one visit to Earlswood came on Thursday and featured three Common Sandpipers and a good gathering of hirundines, mostly Swallows.

Birds seen by others during the week included Gadwalls, Yellow-legged Gulls, a Green Sandpiper and Common Gulls.

At least at Morton Bagot you rarely find out what you missed because hardly anyone ever goes there. This week it's been all about the Garganey which was still there this morning despite the nearest flash having lost half of its water surface.

I have to say it doesn't do much. The typical view is of it head down, feeding constantly. It's nice to know the flash contains sufficient goodies to tempt it to stay, and enough invertebrate prey to allow at least 15 Green Sandpipers and 14 Snipe to do the same.

Knowing the age and sex of the Garganey would ideally require flight views, but the only opportunity was a quick stretch while I was watching it on Tuesday.

I think I can see the pale grey leading edge of the forewing, which would make it an adult drake in eclipse.

Other birds seen at Morton Bagot included an adult Red Kite today, and several Lesser Whitethroats among the other warblers. Hopefully I'll have a bit more to report in the next few days.

There was an unexpected sighting of a Black-shouldered Kite in Gloucestershire a few days ago, but sadly it didn't turn up here.

Sunday August 17 - Morton Bagot

 We are now in the first peak of autumn. By that I mean the time when the summer visitors start to desert Europe, and with any luck one might turn up at your local patch en route. For that reason I formulated a cunning plan, which was to get to Morton Bagot at dawn and hope that something exciting, like a Tree Pipit, would migrate over me.

Well, it was a thought. In fact I saw very little, nothing moving overhead and just a few warblers in the bushes. 

Part two came when I returned after breakfast. Dave was away, but Andy Gooding joined me. We walked down from the church and arrived at the flash field to find the nearest scrape full of water. No matter, it was also full of waders.

We counted 16 Green Sandpipers, seven Snipe, and 24 Lapwings. Not bad. I turned my attention to the ducks and noticed there had been an influx of 19 Teal. Make that 18, one of them turned out to be much more interesting. A Garganey trying to blend in, and nearly succeeding.

Garganey

Garganey on the left, with two Teal

All seven Snipe

We weren't quite done. Andy spotted a bird of prey sitting in the shade of a tree beyond the flash. It turned out to be a Tawny Owl. I can't remember having seen one in this part of the site before.

Tawny Owl

In case you are wondering what the second peak of autumn is, I would say the middle of October when the Redwings and Fieldfares arrive. Hopefully accompanied by something a little rarer.

Saturday August 16 - Earlswood (and garden moths)

 Earlswood Lakes continues to prove irresistible. On Friday morning I saw very little on my post dawn visit, just a Common Sandpiper. There was one moment of interest though. At about 06:30 the Swallows started to tower and twitter, so I scanned around in the hope that a Hobby might have caused their discomfort. Instead I got onto an accipiter cruising behind the foliage of the woodland surrounding Terry's. It looked broad-winged but was immediately hidden from view. Ten seconds later piles of Jackdaws piled out of the wood in panic. Goshawk has yet to be recorded at Earlswood, but maybe it won't be too long a wait.

On Friday night the garden moth trap got an airing, and I caught new species for me. I'll come back to that later. Early on Saturday morning I had just finished going through the remaining moths when a Whatapp message from John Oates had me heading back to Earlswood. He had found a juvenile Mediterranean Gull. Sadly I was half way there when he posted that it had flown off.

Later the same day I got news that the long-staying 4cy Yellow-legged Gull had appeared on Engine Pool. Back I went, and this time there was no problem.

Back to moths. The new one was a small macro with the rather uninspiring name of Small Rufous. They are described as "local", the reason being that it's one of the Wainscot clan all of which live in waterside vegetation. Our garden is a little bit too far away from such habitat to benefit from such species. But ironically I caught two of them, and neither was subsequently found next day as I went through the trap. 

This wasn't the only species identified on Friday night which was absent the following morning. Centre-barred Sallow (nfy), Dingy Footman and Mother of Pearl had also disappeared by this morning.

The full tally was 118 moths of 36 species, but the best looking moth (arguably) was flying around the front garden when I got back from Earlswood and so could not be included in my stats. It's hard to beat a fresh Flame Carpet.

Wednesday August 13 - Earlswood Lakes

 With the heatwave now in full swing, and a busy social calendar unusually engulfing Lyn and myself, I find myself increasingly drawn to making dawn raids to the gravelly shoreline at Earlswood.

The thing about the lakes is that to stand the best chance of finding something you have to get there early, before the dog-walkers and casual strollers find the shore equally irresistible. 

This morning I just beat the sun poking its head over the horizon and scanned Engine Pool for something new. All seemed to be normal, loads of Pied Wagtails recently emerged from their roost, pretending to be waders. Eventually I got onto seven small ducks flying away down the length of the pool and identified them as Teal. They disappeared from view and I assumed they had gone, but some time later found all seven again dabbling in the shallows at the south end.

Two of the seven Teal

 The fact that this was a noteworthy event says a lot about Earlswood. It should contain stable populations of all kinds of waterfowl, but is just too disturbed. 

Returning to the causeway I saw the familiar figure of John Oates approaching and we met up to compare notes. From where we were, we couldn't really be sure that the Teal were still present. The morning then took an exciting, though ultimately disappointing turn, when John heard a Common Sandpiper calling from Windmill Pool. We quickly spotted it flying across the water, but shortly afterwards noticed a second wader flying down the lake at some distance. It appeared brown backed and long-winged, larger than the Common Sandpiper. I suggested Ruff, and John thought that could be a possibility. It landed on a spit right down at the bottom of the lake so we set off in hot pursuit (neither of us carrying a scope).

The bad news is that we never saw it again. Once closer to the spit we scanned in vain, and so we went down to the far end where the only wader was a single Common Snipe. John was sure that wasn't the bird we'd seen, and certainly I had never thought it was a Snipe. We eventually established there were two Common Sandpipers present, but again they were not the bird we'd seen.

Near misses are all part of the birding game. It can be a frustrating hobby at times. I had to leave, while John returned to Engine Pool where the Teal had also checked out. He did however see a Gadwall, which I had missed.

Much ado about nothing you may think, but it will be enough to encourage further optimistic early morning visits.

Monday August 11 - Earlswood Lakes

 I had the opportunity for a few hours extra birding today when Lyn and Maureen, visiting from Australia, decided on a shopping expedition to Solihull. My only part was to drop them off and pick them up.

I spent the intervening time at Earlswood, trying to see the confounded Mandarin. This time I was successful. It was sitting on its preferred bough good as gold.

Earlier in the morning another Ringed Plover had turned up, but this time I was tipped off that it had flown off before I even left the house.

The second visit had to be late morning, just as the grockle was arriving to ruin the tranquility of the place. But despite youngsters playing music at full volume and dog walkers throwing sticks into the lake so that their dogs could splash around ad infinitum, I still managed a brief view of another half decent bird. As I scanned one of the rafts I noticed a Sedge Warbler at its edge, though it soon disappeared into the vegetation growing over most of the structure.

I may be wrong, but I get the impression that not many Sedge Warblers are seen at Earlswood Lakes these days.

Sunday August 10 - Morton Bagot

 As the latest heatwave approaches, Dave and I were out in the "almost" midday sun slogging around Morton Bagot with very little optimism. But it turned out to be a good morning.

On arriving at the flash field I could see a Green Sandpiper and a load of Greylag Geese  on the furthest flash, but having opted to travel light (without scope and tripod) we soon moved on to get a better look at the drying nearest flash. Before we got there we could hear some large gulls kicking off, and it turned out they were mobbing a Great White Egret standing gormlessly on the dry mud. We are sure it must have just arrived.

 

It was constantly being dive-bombed by Lesser Black-backed Gulls and after about ten minutes flew towards the furthest flash. Ten more minutes later it had had enough and we saw it flying north before gaining height by circling, and being lost behind the trees we were sheltering under.

I felt I was due some good luck after an unlucky streak during the week, and on moving to the Kingfisher Pool to see how many Green Sandpipers had chosen to rest there (five), we spotted a Little Grebe. This was the first here since 2021, so it deserved a photograph. This species has an annoying habit of disappearing into thin air, and once we emerged from behind the willow through which we had been looking, it had "gone". I'm pretty certain it had simply dived, but we never saw it again.

Two Kingfishers appeared briefly as we trudged back.

We didn't see much else, so I should mention my hapless attempts to see birds at Earlswood during the latter half of last week. On Thursday I dashed over to try to see a Ringed Plover, but it had gone. The following day I made yet another attempt to see the Mandarin on Terry's Pool. John Oates appeared and offered to show me its favourite perch. The branch in question proved empty. I'll be trying again tomorrow.

Finally, my garden mothing exploits produced 25 moths of 18 species on Friday night, which was fewer than I had been expecting. Only three were new for the year; a very worn Willow Beauty, an Iron Prominent, and most notably only my second Wax Moth.

Iron Prominent

Wax Moth

On Saturday I had a garden butterfly tick when I noticed a small moth or butterfly fluttering pathetically at the end of a strand of cobweb. I decided to go and rescue it and when I uncupped my hands found I was holding a beautiful Purple Hairstreak. I let it go before my brain caught up and reminded me I should have found a way of taking a record shot.

Wednesday August 6

 It's probably fair to say that most patch birding involves seeing the expected species, with just a slight chance of winning the lottery. With such low expectations you can't really be unlucky, or at least that's what I thought. This week has tested that theory.

On Monday I decided to go to Earlswood in the hope of seeing a Mandarin Duck which had been seen over the weekend. It was a rather dull morning with a bit of a breeze, so the optimistic side of me reasoned I might also find something. 

What transpired was that I couldn't find the Mandarin (though it was seen later in the day) and I got stung by a Wasp. Not ideal. The juvenile Little Ringed Plover was still off the causeway, and my walk around the tree-lined Terry's Pool where the Mandarin was hiding, at least allowed me to take a not very good photograph of a Kingfisher.

Today I decided to try my luck at Morton Bagot. Once again I was unfortunate. The cause of my angst was a pale moth which fluttered passed before pitching into the grass at my feet. I had been wondering what it was, but was rather startled to find it had hook-tipped wings. A photograph might be required for me to check which species it was. The moth wasn't co-operating particularly well, flopping about, mostly on the other side of grass stems. I finally had it in a reasonable position and pressed the shutter, only to find that the battery in the camera was now exhausted. By the time I'd changed it, the moth had sneaked off. I'm pretty sure it was a Pebble Hook-tip, a site tick, but it would have been nice to get a shot.

I continued to the flash field, which still looks great, but could only count two Common Snipe and five Green Sandpipers. I later discovered that a further eight Green Sands were on the adjacent Kingfisher Pool, although they took off bound for the safety of the first flash as soon as they saw me.

At least it was sunny, so the camera was used.

I've occasionally seen Green Sandpipers using the rubble in the far corner of the Kingfisher Pool before. They do not feed here, but just rest up until some annoying birder turns up to disturb them.

Guilty as charged.

Sunday August 3 - Morton Bagot

 A cloudy morning with barely any breeze. Dave and I were keen to see whether the Wood Sandpiper was still present, but before we got to the flash field, an unexpected find was a Reed Warbler in one of the hedgerows. Clear evidence that passerine migration is underway.

We set up my scope to view the furthest flash but there didn't appear to be any waders there. Moving on to the nearest flash the omens looked good. The water-level had dropped and waders could be seen around its edge.

An hour later we had to admit that the Wood Sandpiper was not among them. Instead we counted 15 Green Sandpipers, and found the first three Common Snipe of the autumn. The Water Rail put in a brief appearance, while five Teal swam around. Morton Bagot was back to normal.

A moulting adult Green Sandpiper

Some of the Green Sandpipers fed in the grass, these are smart juveniles

The three Common Snipe

We also saw two Willow Emerald Damselflies, but unfortunately were unable to photograph them.

On Friday night the moth trap was switched on, and hurriedly switched off when it was found to contain three angry Hornets. An hour later it went on again, and this time no Hornets turned up.

I wondered whether the false start would affect the moth catch, but despite a relatively cool night I still found 61 moths in and around the trap the following morning. None were new for the garden, but seven species were new this year. Highlights were a Sallow Kitten (which completed a clean sweep of Kitten species this year), and the migrant Rush Veneer which was my first since 2022.

Sallow Kitten

Rush Veneer