Just home from a fantastic week away with the family staying just outside St Just in West Cornwall. We spent lots of time enjoying some amazing scenery around the coastal paths and enjoying the most unbelivable house where we stayed.
I managed to get out and do some birding each day of which I'll summarise the sightings. Chough were seen on every costal walk in varying numbers, anyone will do well to miss them.
When I first started to see birds further afield I drew up a list of a dozen birds I really wanted to see above anything else. Most of those have been seen yet Icterine Warbler remained the one I just could not get near. I'd dipped two and also missed one in Spurn by a day, oh the pain.
Roll on to this Monday and the easterly winds had blown a number of great birds into Spurn including 4 Icterine Warblers. Surely this was the chance to finally see one. A plan was hatched for the following day, Mark Clarke joined me and @1stbirdoftheday as the Squire was stuck at work.
Twitching a bird can be very painful, long drive, waiting around, brief views, it's all part of it. Yet sometimes things just fall into place. First of all, the Icterine was reported at the Warren as we headed up the M1 and once parked we walked calmly down to the Warren and the first two birds we saw was a majestic lemon coloured Icterine Warbler and first calender year Collared Flycatcher. Unbelievable scenes!
I'd seen so many photos and videos of Icterine Warblers of the year, it was a genuine delight to see one close up and observe it working around the cover of bushes. The species breed in central europe and then winter in the sub-saharan Africa.
The Collared Flycatcher has been rung and retrapped where thesegreat images were taken and they show the slight differences to a female Pied Flycatcher. We really enjoyed both birds before skipping away to the canal scrape where we observed a female/imature Red-backed Shrike, which was another lifer for Mark.
Our next stop was Kilnsea church yard where Mark picked up some movement high in the trees. It was another Icterine Warbler. This one was a juvenile and photographs taken confirmed this. We also noted our second Wood Warbler of the morning.
Our final stop was Kilnsea Wetlands where yet again the birds were on a plate. We didn't even need to walk to the hide to see a Pectoral Sandpiper, 2 Little Stints, Dunlin & Sanderling. We even bumped into our Scillys skipper Paul Freestone from Cornwall birding. Now that's birding...........
Sunday brought more Autumn interest to Salford Priors when the site recorded it's second Pectoral Sandpiper (juvenile) . The bird must have come down in the westerly winds and heavy over night rain. Sadly the bird took flight as soon as the rain stopped so not all of us couldn't connect. The Little Stint, the star of Saturday, was still present on the main spit all day. The islands were pretty busy with waders including 4 Ruff, 5 Ringed Plover, Snipe, 15 Lapwing, 2 Green Sandpiper & 2 Common Sandpiper. Our Pintail was joined by another drake whilst other wildfowl included 13 Wigeon, 7 Gadwall, 52 Teal, 300 Mallard, Chiloe Wigeon, 27 Tufties, 6 Shoveller, 5 Mute Swan, 320 Greylag, 275 Canada Geese and a Domestic goose. Whilst other sightings included a Rock Pipit (136 for year) on puddles of restored ground near Snipe meadow, 33 Little Grebe, 28 Cormorant, 7 Grey Herons, 4 White Wagtail, 30 Pied Wagtail, 9 Swallows & 5 Chiffchaffs. On Saturday, Chris recorded a pair of Stonechat on the fence line at Pophills but these were not present on Sunday.
Dusty looking clearly shocked at his new opening partner
Nesting Lesser Black-backed Gull
Hobby
Close up House Martin
Look I'm busy
Group shot
Oddfest in full swing on way home
An extended weekend with the bonus of a Bank Holiday, was a good job given the agenda of plans. Saturday mornings visit resulted in both the main pit & Pophills being very quiet. After passing the old workings I found a group of House Martins collecting mud so I sat myself down and just waited for the birds. I had a great hour enjoying these birds at close quarters that nest in Dunnington. As I watched the birds, an alarm call prompted me to look up where I could see our first Hobby of the year.In the afternoon we headed to Stourport to watch the lads open the batting together for Feckenham in their Worcester league game. The lads had a 75 partnership with Dusty cracking 65, his second fifty in four games. The game finished in a amazing tie with Gussy taking a very important ninth wicket & then running out the last man.
Jon did the honours on Sunday but didn't record anything other than the normal but recorded 10 Lapwing, 7 pairs of Meadow Pipits, Grey Wagtail, 5 singing Sedge Warblers, 3 Cuckoo's, of butterflies included Painted Lady, two Brown Argus & a Grizzled Skipper, first for several years.
I didn't return until Monday morning where I was pretty hopeful of a wader of some type given the bad weather. I wanted to see how our pair of Lesser Black-backed Gulls were progressing and evidence suggests they could be incubating eggs which would be a unique record away from the colonies in the big cities.
After setting up my scope I picked up two Ringed Plovers on one of the islands & then our first Little Stint (our 127th species of the year after Terry recorded two Grey Partridges & Little Egret earlier in the morning). After sending a group text out the three birds took off but thankfully landed on Pophills were the Squire found them, Mike Inskip also joined us.
Other sightings from last week included 4 Little Ringed Plover, a Ringed Plover on Tuesday (Mike Inskip). The Squire found a reeling Grasshopper Warbler by the river in Alcester, Andy Woodward found two Garden Warblers at Abbots Salford & three Mandarin ducks remain in the area.
The lads were heading into Taunton to take on a high ropes courses so I opted for a return to Steart. I almost didn't make it as I luckily avoided a head on smash on the lanes when a Volvo flew round a corner at speed before slamming it's breaks on to avoid me by millimetres. Nutter ! The waders were quite distant when I reached the view point however I worked my way through the marsh trying to find and observe what ever possible. The best find were two Little Stints shuffling through the mud with a flock of Ringed Plovers. Plenty of Dunlin & Redshank on show with two Greenshank & a distant Kingfisher landed on the marsh gate. A local female birder joined me from Taunton who appeared informed on local sightings however there were a genuine lack of birders around the reserve considering it was just after high tide. A Wheatear popped up just in front of me which gave me the chance to take some reasonable images before heading across the reserve to watch the wildfowl containing Teal, Shelduck & Pintail. On the way back to the car I noted a Stonechat & a Whinchat. A very relaxed morning.
Typical that while away on my summer holiday the weather broke here and the birds just dropped in Salford Priors starting on Friday when Mike Inskip recorded 42 Common and 17 Black Tern. This was followed up by Jon on Sunday whose highlights were: 1 Garganey on Pophills, Red Kite, 1 Curlew Sandpiper, 4 Little Stints, 6 Dunlin, 1 Greenshank (all main pit), 1 juvenile Med Gull (main pit), male Redstart , 2 Whinchat, 1 Wheatear and a Grasshopper Warbler. Also had a good variety of other species including Great Crested Grebe, Shoveler, Pochard, Snipe, Yellow Wagtail, and good counts eg 115 Goldfinches on thistles. With a few days off before returning to work hopefully I may get another stream of good passage.
Good birds can't be found on a Monday ! Horror moment when I glanced at the phone late morning to see a female Red-backed Shrike had been found by Phil Wood & Andy Pitt on the Flashes at Upton Warren. As the clock struck 4pm I was quicker down the M5 than Lewis Hamilton to make sure I saw my first Worcestershire Red-backed Shrike. This was the 4th record at Upton Warren and the first since 1999. Digiscoping was very difficult as the light was awful and the rain was hammering down. Other sightings included Sundays Little Stint and two Black-tailed Godwits. I did head to Salford Priors straight after given the weather however sightings were pretty much as per yesterday.
