Tuesday 20 October 2015

Salford Priors missed opportunities

 Me on Sunday looking for Bearded Tit
The former old works reed bed

Starting with the good news ! Chris Lane found a Corn Bunting on Friday & Jon then found a Bearded Tit on Sunday. The bad news is I didn't see either. Myself and Paul searched for the Corn Bunting on Saturday with out luck. On Sunday I finished earlier than usual as I needed to do a cricket taxi to Malvern. You can only imagine my horror when I read the below email from Jon.

I had fantastic views of a male Bearded Tit at the big reed lagoon after you had gone! I was standing along the side hedge by the reed bed after I had heard a couple of quiet “twangs”. Nothing showed so I started to wander on thinking I had just imagined it, when a bird flew into the reeds just next to me and started to climb up the reed! I immediately saw that it was an immaculate male Bearded Tit and to cap it all it start pinging when it got to the top. It then towered up high into the sky pinging before dropping down into the reeds at the back of the pool. On two more occasions I saw it towering up pinging – the last time it flew off high towards the west – but could not see whether it circled back around and dropped down again. At this time you must have been back at the car or just left. I thought I heard a couple of quiet twangs later so it could just be still there, though it looked as though it had just arrived and may have moved quickly on. Still an excellent sighting, and much better view than of my first bird here.

I duly put the news out and four of us searched in vain as the light faded. Gutted is an understatement. Another great find from Jon.

Other sightings included :- 2 Pintail, Kingfisher, 4 Wigeon,  9 Gadwell, 32 Snipe (mostly on the bund), 1 Green Sandpiper, 75 Fieldfare, 120 Redwing, 1 Chiffchaff (Pophills) and good numbers of gulls in on the main pit – including 70 LBB, 5 Herring, 2 Yellow-legged and 1 Common Gull.

Sadly the area where we recorded our large Jack Snipes counts is practically all but destroyed following the installation of more drainage work. 

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