Merry Caspmas!

Having finished work early for Christmas yesterday, (Friday 23/12) I had the afternoon to myself. So, I decided to do a bit of local birding to see what I could find.

I started off by popping into Grimsbury Reservoir, however this proved to be a pretty fleeting visit with bugger all about! So next, I decided to have a drive down the A361 to Boddington Reservoir and on the way, see if I could track down some gulls in the fields close to Banbury, as I knew there had been some decent numbers around the fields here.

Good news, there appeared to be plenty big gulls about, with a sizable number heading to fields towards Chacombe. I took the road up towards the village and managed to find a large group in a cattle field. Parking in the muddy gateway, I began scoping the birds, however views were rather indifferent, with a number of inquisitive cattle constantly obscuring my view!

Eventually though I was able to get a look in! There were surprisingly good numbers of Herring Gull here, not a massively numerous bird in the area. Also plenty of LBBGs and then the cherry on the top, a lovely 1st-winter Caspian Gull, a super scarce bird in these parts! It spent a lot of time sitting down but did have a wander around a couple of times too. Shocking phone-scoped and bridge photo (with a hint of cow!) below...

The area straddles the Oxon & Northants border but having spoken to my friend Gareth Blockley, he confirmed it was in Northants. After a good scan, I also managed to muster 2 Yellow-Legged Gull (adult & 3w). Another further scan of a whole load more gulls in Oxon Upper Cherwell Valley, on the other side of the A361 also yielded a 2w Yellow Legged Gull.

I decided to still give Boddington Res a go before heading back to Grimsbury, in the vain hope the Caspo would turn up there! Bod had a bit more wildfowl than usual but overall didn't produce anything spectacular in increasingly breezy & gloomy conditions. Best here were a very smart adult Yellow Legged Gull (phone-scoped below), 22 Wigeon (a good count for here), a Little Egret, 7 Goosander (4 drakes) & a drake Shoveler.

I ended up leaving Bod at about 15:20, a bit later than I intended. I zoomed over to Grimsbury. I saw Gareth's car parked up, as I thought I might and marched up the west side of the reservoir, in the wind and light rain. There were plenty of gulls about but mostly BHGs.

As I approached Gareth, he looked rather animated, "did you get my messages??" I hadn't...some sort of signal issue and guess what, he'd seen a Caspian Gull, but now couldn't find it...bugger!! Cursing the fact I'd arrived later than I intended, I began eagerly scanning around for the bird.

After a couple of minutes...YES, I was in luck as I picked it up almost head on to me, that pale appearance was unmistakable. High fives all round, a real Christmas present, site first and patch tick to boot. It transpired that this was in fact a 2w and amazingly a different bird to my 1w earlier in the day, no more than a couple of miles away. For not having ever seen one in the area, to have two in the same day was pretty exceptional! Yet another piss-poor phone-scoped photo below, as well as Gareth's far superior video (a great effort considering the weather!)

The conditions were pretty minging, but to be honest we didn't mind too much as we stood enjoying what had been a long-awaited and much predicted patch first. After about 15 minutes it vanished and the weather was worsening too, so we headed off home with a big, big grin!

Derbyshire Dusky

It's been a little while since my last blog post! However, I haven't really done all that much birding for the last month or so, other than a little bit here and there locally and that's not really produced much of note at all!

However, on Sunday 04/12, news emerged of a Dusky Thrush, in the rather surprising location of Beeley, a sleepy little village on the edge of the Derbyshire Peak District. What's more, it wasn't just a one day wonder and by midweek, myself Gareth & Dan provisionally penciled ourselves in for a drive north on Sunday 11/12.

Fast forward to Saturday 10/12 and pleasingly the bird was still present. So, first thing Sunday, myself, Gareth & Dan met up in Banbury and took the 2 hour drive north. We arrived around 9am as planned and plonked the car up in the nearby Chatsworth estate car park (there was no parking permitted in the village over the weekend). The hospitable locals had actually put on shuttle mini-buses for visiting birders to take them down to village, however we decided to take the 15 minute walk ourselves to get a bit of fresh air in the lungs.

We soon found the area where the bird was frequenting; a tiny orchard (so tiny in fact, orchard was stretching it a bit!) surrounded by birders, adjacent to the Duke's Barn activity centre.

The bird had only showed briefly, once at first light, however we didn't have to wait too long before it appeared around the apple trees. My first sighting was largely obscured, as it sat preening, with me looking through about 3 separate sets of branches. However there it was, a Dusky Thrush...great stuff! It disappeared off over our heads after a few decent views. This was enough for several birders at the front to move off and I got myself a nice spot right in front of the 'orchard', with Gareth & Dan not to far behind me.

We went on to get 2 or 3 further prolonged showings of the bird, never having to wait too long. All three of us gained some pretty mint views of the bird and by close to midday, we decided we'd had our fill...not before we'd enjoyed further Derbyshire hospitality with a cuppa and a sausage sarnie. Spot on! The locals really had been awesome, putting up signs around the village for birders, as well as all the refreshments and the minibus too. Good on them!

The walk back to the car was productive with views of a couple of very confiding Dipper along the river, as well as a number of calling Crossbills in some nearby spruce.

We next moved off to Cromford, south of Matlock, a regular spot for Hawfinch, high up in trees along a river gorge. We had a good scan around the area, however failed to rustle up anything of interest. We had a couple of hours to play with so being lovers of a good old gull roost, we decided to pop into Foremark Reservoir, a place regularly turning up decent Caspian Gull counts.

Foremark turned out to be a cracking little site. Fabulous numbers of gulls were to be seen, as well a long-staying female Common Scoter and a female Pintail. The main gull highlights were 3 Caspian Gulls (2 adults & a 1st-winter), as well as 2-3 adult Yellow-Legged Gulls to boot. The sunset was pretty breathtaking too and it was really entertaining meeting local birder 'Dipper', a bit of a Scillies veteran from the 80's glory days! Top day out with guys again!