Birds of the sleet & snow

This weekend has had a particularly bleak feel to it, full of wintery showers & heavy cloud.

I still though, braved the conditions for much of Saturday, coming away with a few nice birds. I spent much of Saturday morning doing the Grimsbury Res & Upper Cherwell Valley circuit with Gareth. The res was fairly quiet with just a male Goosander, however the wood hosted both Marsh & Willow Tit, while one of the fields adjacent to the M40 held a female Stonechat, a Snipe & star of the show, a single Jack Snipe, my first in the upper Cherwell area.

I then went on to join Dan for another Warwickshire stint, mainly for gulls again, south of Coventry. We started near to Dan's at Compton Verney near Kineton for a quick look at the lake. A pair of Red Crested Pochard here were nice to see & unexpected.

On then to Ryton Pools / Bubbenhall area for a mooch about for white-wingers. We were soon in luck, as Dan picked out a big old 1w Glaucous Gull amongst large numbers of gulls in a roadside field. A 1w Caspian Gull was also closeby.

A visit to Ryton Pools, just around the corner produced possibly another (?) 1w Glaucous Gull, as well as 4w & 3w YLGs. By which time, the extremities were feeling flipping frozen and we were both happy to leave.

Before departing the area, we popped 5 minutes up the road to attempt to connect with a flock of Waxwings that had been about for a few days. After a short drive about, we came across thirty birds sat in a tree in the middle of Wolston, SE of Coventry. They were clearly pretty keen to come down to a nearby bush, groaning with berries. The only problem was the local Mistle Thrush had other ideas, guarding it at all costs! After 15 minutes or so they decided to head off and so we followed suit.

Dan headed home afterwards and I, after a bit of umming and ahhing decided to finish my day for a look at the Boddington gull roost. On the way there, between Kineton & Edgehill, I peeled off the B4086 near to Arlescote. I was then confronted by the bizarre sight of a Woodcock sat in the middle of the road, in broad daylight! I stopped, astounded by what was in front of me and reached for my phone to grab a pic, only to catch sight of a car in my mirrors coming up behind me, bugger! I inched forward and the bird slowly waddled off into the roadside ditch. I turned around further up the road and returned, however failed to relocate it. A shame, but wow, by far my best ever view of a Woodcock!! Hopefully it hadn't previously been hit by a car and was just simply a particularly dozy bird!

The Boddington roost certainly pulled in a large number of birds, particularly Common Gulls, however i failed to find anything unusual. Two roosting Little Egrets were the only birds slightly notable.