Black-necked Grebe in round and about weekend

Black-necked Grebe

Tree Sparrow

Common Tern (Earlswood)

Little Gull (Upton Warren)

With a depressing spell of weather over the country it has meant there has been very little movement of birds through our area of the country.

Arrow Valley Lake and Park continues much as usual with a few Common Tern passing through. A number of the Grey Heron young have now fledged and can be seen around the lake.  On the north of the park I picked up a Sparrowhawk  on an evening walk followed by a Kestrel both hunting an evening meal. Both additions to the patch list for this year as I don’t see many in this location. 

I did drop in at Earlswood during the afternoon hoping for a goodie or two but given the lack of passage birds I dug out my old Nikon D80 and tried my hand of getting a few shots of the Common Terns.

On Sunday I was very much hoping for something good to land locally but the nearest nice bird to see was a pair of Black-necked Grebe at West Midland Bird Club’s Belvide reserve located towards Telford.

On the walk down to the reservoir the first feeding area held a number of Tree Sparrow including a good number of very young birds.

Once reaching the reservoir there were hundreds of Swifts in the company of House Martins. The pair of Black-necked Grebes were easily picked out but you needed to look closely to observe the slight difference in size.  The birds appeared to tease us all afternoon as we moved from hide to hide to get the best view. I was quite pleased with the digiscoped images I got in the end given the poor light. Other highlights included a good number of Common Terns and a young Water Vole.

On Monday I walked Morton Bagot with the wife. On the walk down to the flash Whitethroat scrimmaged in the hedgerows but  the normal abundant Yellowhammers were mostly quiet.  Mary Ann located a Grey Partridge showing closely and we also located a pair of Red legs. Skylarks were singing loudest of all but a Cuckoo was doing his best to let us know he was in the viniticty.  The flash was very quiet and was limited to Lapwing, Grey Heron and Mallards.