Sunday 20 November 2016

Sunday November 20

Having seen a weather forecast on Friday night which implied Sunday would largely be a wash-out, Dave had resigned himself to sitting in the hides at Marsh Lane GP, while I had decided on a lie-in with a possibility of some late afternoon birding.

It therefore came as a bit of a shock to the system to be awakened by a phone call from an alarmingly chipper Dave at 08.20 this morning, and to be informed it was not raining and he would be setting out in ten minutes.

I managed to get us up and breakfasted in record time, but it was still  09.45 before I joined Dave at the patch. The early signs were promising, with lots of small birds around. At the chat field I spotted an adult Peregrine sitting on a pylon, the first for several weeks.

Peregrine
Moving on we then spotted a flock of at least 120 Black-headed Gulls flying low westwards just beyond the hedge bordering the flash field. Our optimism for the day received a major surge because this was way above the numbers we normally see here, and was probably the largest flock of the year.  They also represented an opportunity to check for other Gulls (frankly any other small gull species would be a good find here), so we hurried towards the flash. On our way at least 30 Yellowhammers flew from the hedge bordering the pool, but we didn't take the time to look carefully at them.

It therefore came as a crushing disappointment that not a single gull had lingered. It wasn't all doom and gloom though, because Teal numbers had almost doubled from the the previous highest count this autumn. At least 191 were present, (this evening I have discovered that this is just six short of the highest ever count here) along with five Wigeon and about 25 Mallard.

Some of the Teal
The Teal were noticeably jumpy, and the reason for this became clear as the adult Peregrine powered across the nearest flash causing panic among the ducks.

We eventually returned to our cars, noting a Grey Wagtail, and about 100 winter thrushes before we got there. Dave headed off, while I decided to try to take some photos from the car despite the poor light.

Linnet
Song Thrush
Redwing
I drove off, but stopped in the village to photograph a Nuthatch perched on telephone wires.

Nuthatch
A final stop came at the last bend before the crossroads. The hill towards Bannams Wood looks the sort of place you could imagine seeing a Ring Ouzel (we never have), and today I decided it also had potential for a Great Grey Shrike. None were present of course, but it did produce a good record as I spotted about 100 Golden Plovers flying far in the distance between Morton Bagot and Wootton Wawen. A truly enigmatic species. There must be fields they favour somewhere in the area but they almost never land in, for example, the flash field. I guess Morton Bagot's fields are just too small to tempt them.

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