There wasn't anything particularly outrageous, however we did see a male Peregrine appear out of the fog as well as a Nuthatch and a few Teal up in the valley. Nice morning to be out though.
We had a look for gulls near Chacombe, however rather surprisingly there were none! So we finished our rounds with a drive around Banbury looking for Waxwings. Incredibly, after probably no more than a minute of devising the Waxwing plan, Gareth spotted one sat in a roadside tree on the edge of a housing estate. Madness!
I quickly threw the car around the roundabout up ahead and headed back. It was still there on the return, so I drove into the estate for a closer look. We soon found the right road and ended up enjoying some lovely views (albeit minus the forecast sun!) of the Waxwing for a good 15-20 minutes as it sat in a silver birch doing a mixture of preening and pooing (9 in total!) It then flew out of sight but didn't appear to have gone very far. We couldn't however relocate it but hey-ho, we couldn't really complain.
The next day was a very cold, but stunningly clear, still and bright day. I spent much of the day birding with Dan in southern Warwickshire. Before I headed over to meet up with him, a check of the gulls near Chacombe, produced an adult Caspian Gull, Yellow-Legged Gull & a nice surprise Tree Sparrow. A quick peek at Grimsbury Reservoir produced a pair of Wigeon.
I met up with Dan in Kineton and he took me to the delightful surroundings of the local sewage works. But actually, it was very much a worthwhile visit, with lovely views of the classic-looking, grey and white Siberian Chiffchaff that he had found a few weeks previously. Getting a photo of a flitty phylosc with my bridge camera is decidedly difficult, hence my best photo (below) is poor at best! You can see what it is though.
Another bird present, a pale-legged individual also appeared to possibly be of eastern origin, however exhibited less classic plumage tones and also failed to call. It was however pretty washed out in colour, had quite a bold supercilium and was noticeably different from the several other collybita also present.
Next stop was Ryton Pools, just south of Coventry for a bit of Gulling. Both myself and particularly Dan, never need too much encouragement to have a look at gulls and this day was no exception! I was hoping to see my first white-wingers of the winter and with pretty regular sightings from the area in recent days, we were in with a good chance.
There were plenty of birds to go through, however despite a few decent birds, we were unlucky not to get any Icelands or Glaucs. We did however gain brief views of a striking leucistic Herring Gull in a nearby field, looking almost pure white! On the pools, we managed to pick out both 1w & 2w Caspian Gulls which is always nice. The 1w was particularly cool as it had a yellow ring, reading 'X198', showing that it was of German origin. I've e-mailed the ringer and await the details.
We then planned to finish the day at Boddington Reservoir for a further fix of gulls, with the vain hope we might find a white winger with an decent influx in the past couple of weeks.
The speed at which we got over there increased somewhat, with the gripping news from Gareth, that an adult Glaucous Gull had turned up in fields just outside Banbury, near Chacombe; a great find by Mike Pollard. See Mike's account here: http://heartofenglandnature.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/chacombe-glaucous-gull.html
This was good news, however sods law for me slightly, as I'd been checking the gulls there for a while looking for something good. The moment I leave the area to look for white wingers the Glauc turns up! That is just the way it goes sometimes!
Boddington was probably our best bet to see the bird and so eagerly made our way there. we were soon joined by Ian Dobson, Mike Pollard and Gareth too. It was a big roost and after a bit of effort we managed to pick out a nice 1w Caspian Gull. The light was getting pretty tricky, however at the 11th hour, an adult white winger plonked down in my scope view. It was indeed the Glaucous Gull. Get in! A super scarce bird for our area and a Boddington first for me (a shoddy iphone-scoped photo below in what little light was left!).
Great views of a Barn Owl on the way home topped off a great weekends birding!
No comments:
Post a Comment