Progress continues at the pits

                                                  Yellow Wagtail

                                               Lesser Whitethroat

                                          Morton Bagot Bluebells

                                             Path of dreams

                                                     Cuckoo        

                                                    Wheatear

                               This yound deer greets me most mornings

                                                Yellow Wagtails

 

Yellow Wagtail

Five visits this week and still I managed to miss the best passage on Tuesday due to work when 8 Arctic Tern went through & a Dunlin also had a short visit on the spit.

Paul added our first Little Egret of the year on Friday & followed this up by picking up a Goshawk the following day when registering 67 species as part of West Midland Alldayer.

Sundays count undertaken by Jon & Chris (County Recorder) - 7 pairs of Little Grebe, 1 Cormorant, 1 Little Egret (on main pool), 1 Grey Heron, 3 pairs of Mute Swans and 2 nests, 10 Greylag, 20 Canada Geese, 3 pairs of Gadwall, one new brood of Mallard (now 4), 87 Tufted Duck, 1 Sparrowhawk, 8 Buzzards, 1 Kestrel, 2 Coot broods out, pair of Oystercatcher, 5 Little Ringed Plover, 1 Lapwing, 4 Black-headed Gull, pair of territorial LBB Gulls and 3 more through, 4 Herring Gulls,  3 Cuckoos (two male, 1 female), 40 Swift, 20 Sand Martin, 50 Swallow, a few House Martins, total of 6 Yellow Wagtail, 1 female Whinchat at Pophills, 1 male Wheatear; counts of singing warblers included: 2 Cetti's, 9 Sedge Warbler, 25-30 Reed Warbler, 5 Lesser Whitethroat, 15 Common Whitethroat; 3 pairs of Long-tailed Tit, 3 Jay, 2 pairs of Yellowhammer and the white Reed Bunting.

Year list now stands at 110. Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

Channel Wagtail & nervous nineties

                                               Channel Wagtail

                                           Curlew (Dennis Sinton)

                                                 Channel Wagtail

                                 Common Sandpiper & Yellow Wagtail

                                                     Pophills

                                              Common Sandpiper

                                                Yellow Wagtail
Quite an interesting week at the pits despite the weather being far from ideal with a northerly wind blowing. There have been four new species observed which are House Martin, Yellow Wagtail, Curlew & Common Sandpiper.

Curlews have been very difficult to observe due to the change of habitat so it was a treat that Rob, Dennis & Marion all got a midweek sighting. House Martin numbers are still low but there are good numbers of Sand Martin & Swallow now coming through. 

On Sunday I teamed up with Jon for a regular morning circuit. It was a very cold morning but we were quite hopeful. A Blackcap burst into song as we left the cars which was a promising start but in all honesty it was very quiet. The old workings had a female Wheatear & there was the first of our five LRP we recorded.  The white/albino Reed Bunting was in the reeds in the south lagoons & there were more Blackcaps.

The action didn't pick up until we got back to the main pit where the newly arrived Common Sandpiper was on the south edge feeding with four Yellow Wagtails. On closer inspection one of Wagtails was a Channel wagtail. Views were restricted as it was right of a willow but I tried to get a couple of record shots. The birds flew towards the northern end but we couldn't find the Channel Wagtail again. 

In northern France, there is an 'intergrade zone' where Blue-headed and Yellow Wagtails regularly interbreed. The offspring of such pairings are variable in appearance, but many individuals show a head pattern that resembles a washed-out Blue-headed, with a paler powder-blue head and often more extensive white in the supercilium, ear-coverts and throat. These intergrades are colloquially known as 'Channel Wagtail'. They are the commonest form of Blue-headed to occur in many northern areas of Britain. (BirdGuides)

This puts the site list on to a 97 species for the year.

Round town sightings

Yellow Wagtail (Mark Clarke)

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Just no room on one of two remaining islands

Brown Argus

Common Blue

It's been a funny week with the weather. Strong south westerlies brought us our first Hobby over the main areas of the pits that I flushed from the back of the old workings and the heavy cloud cover attracting 250+ Swifts on Friday. A pair of Yellow Wagtail are frequenting the crop near the service road but are not easy to see.

Jon picked up two Ringed Plovers trying to land on Sunday morning but kept going as practically impossible. Jon's full count was as follows:-

8 pairs of Little Grebe with one brood, 1 Great Crested Grebe, 1 Cormorant, 1 Grey Heron, 11 Mute Swan with brood, 55 Greylags, 66 Canada Geese and brood, 8 Gadwall, 135 Mallard, 2 (male and female) Pochard, 62 Tufted Duck, 6 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 90 Coot, 3 pairs of Little Ringed Plover, 2 Ringed Plover circled main pit calling, 3 Lapwing, 5 Black-headed and 12 LBB Gulls, 350 Swifts, 70 House Martins, 2 Green Woodpecker, counts of singing warblers included 40 Reed, 2 Lesser Whitethroat and 12 Common Whitethroat, 1 Raven, 50 Linnets in rape, just 1 Yellowhammer singing.

I visited Spernal at the start of week and had some super views of 2 Barn Owls to the backdrop of 3 Grasshopper Warblers.

Stop no access !

Welcome to Salford Priors

Whinchat

Exploring new areas

Barn Swallow

Sand Martin

Sunflowers in bloom

A moody looking Pophills

Looking towards main pit from Old workings

Main pit showing water levels

Yellow Wagtail

Yellow Wagtail

Chiffchaff movement 

Snipe (Mark Clarke)

Autumn has seemed very slow to get going at Salford Priors. The end of August finished with some good passage of Yellow Wagtails with 30+ recorded on one visit. Two Redstarts remained loyal to same hedges until end of the month. Wildfowl numbers have increased with 27 Teal present and a immature Garganey on 26th August. I recorded two drake Wigeon on the 29th whilst 75 Swallows were feeding low.

Passage waders have been very rare except Common & Green Sandpipers, a Ringed Plover went through ahead of the rain also on 26th. 

Chris Lane watched a early juvenile/female Merlin catch a Skylark at close quarter and also recorded 79 Lapwing & a Tawny Owl on his visit. 

There have been two year list additions in the last week with a Spotted Flycatcher on the railway line & a Whinchat on the back of Pophills.

Sadly three "No Access" signs appeared in the field where we get access to the main pit. As soon as these signs appeared all of us who visit regular stayed clear of the main pit whilst I tried to contact the Ragley Estate as this seemed very much out of the blue.

Head of farming on the estate duly investigated this for us and confirmed the signs had not been put up by the Ragley Estate or Cemex who currently manage the lease. We can only think the company / individuals who raise pheasants in the plantation have taken exception to us passing by for a reason unknown. All of the team stayed clear of this area when the pheasants are being reared to avoid any minor problems. 

From Sunday the team can carry on as previous but have just lost access to two areas and need to access the main pit via a longer route.

The new drainage in place has increased water levels and added to this the islands are overgrown (not to mentions hundreds of saplings planted) the future remains very unclear. Until the restoration is complete we are unable discuss possible lease options with the estate which is a shame but unfortunately there was not a lot of foresight in the planning stages. 

Sunday combined sightings from Jon, Paul and myself included 31 Little Grebe, 16 Cormorant, 3 Grey heron, 11 Mute Swan, 405 Greylag, 94 Canada Geese, 1 Hybrid (Canada x Barnacle), 6 Manadrin, 15 Wigeon, 14 Gadwall, 37 Teal, 278 Mallard, 1 Pintail, 11 Shoveler, 1 male Pochard, 71 Tufted Duck, male Sparrowhawk, a Hobby, 13 Moorhen, 243 Coot, 115 Lapwing, a Dunlin, Snipe, Redshank, Green Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, 150 Black-headed Gulls, a first winter Common Common Gull, first winter Yellow-legged Gull, a Sand Martin, Tree Pipit, 50 Meadow Pipits through (no wagtails or chats), few Blackcaps, 18 Chiffchaff, 1 Willow Warbler & a Raven. 

Tern Tuesday

Twitchers at Draycote

Yellow Wagtail

 Black Tern (Salford Priors GP)

 Black Tern (Salford Priors GP)

Turnstones & Ring Plovers

 Common Tern causing the stir

 More dodgy shots in poor light

Red-headed Smew just before dark

With a day booked off for recovery after the Scotland trip I couldn’t resist a trip over to Draycote Water first thing to see two White-winged Black Terns reported the previous evening. The views were always distant but you could watch them well through the scope flying around with 25 Black Terns & 2 Arctic Terns.

With an apparent huge Tern passage going on across the country I was keen to make sure we never missed out at the pits so I headed there directly but could only find a Turnstone, two Ringed Plover and a male Mandarin down at Abbots Salford.

In the evening I returned with Paul and we had a bumper session. First scan revealed 3 Black Terns & 6 Common Terns of which 4 took off. One of the remaining Terns had a very dark beak and we were very hopeful it could be a Rosette Tern. The light was awful making photography very difficult but I did take a few rough grainy shots that indicated it was a Common Tern with a dark beak. Strangely enough Belvide looked to have a similar bird the following morning. However the photos on Twitter were only showing the bird perched. Our bird clearly showed black on the trailing edge (broader & greyer) of underwing whilst Roseate Tern is usually all white with no trailing edge,  Arctic Tern has a narrow well defined black trailing edge.

In the final minutes of scanning a small bird landed in the north east corner of the pit, on closer inspection it was a red headed Smew ! This was my first record of the species at the site. The bird seemed very tired as it went to sleep also straight away.