Newbridge,  12^th January  2016

 

A thrush flush plus

uncommon Common

 

At last, some proper winter weather this morning, winds from the north west, black clouds piling in and a hint of sleet.  This is much more like it, so head down and start across rain-sodden pitches towards the wood.  There’s movement near the boundary fence and a single Fieldfare flies up into a tree, the first record for the species here this winter.  A check across the grass reveals two Redwing foraging with a Mistle Thrush near to three male Blackbirds and a Song Thrush.  This, in card terms, must be a straight flush of resident and seasonal visitors, all of whom fly up suddenly into the wood or across the canal as a Common Buzzard circles low overhead before slanting away from the oncoming squalls.  The wood is damp, cold and quiet, but yesterday it produced a Treecreeper plus male and female Great Spotted Woodpecker.  Today at least two Robin are singing, a Nuthatch calls high in the trees and a solitary Goldfinch trills against the darkening sky at the top of an oak next to the allotments.

Along the canal at DUNSTALL PARK birds are still responding to the weather conditions of recent weeks.  The ground is waterlogged, and lake levels have risen to a point where Snipe have disappeared and duck numbers are even lower than at the end of last year.  On 8/1 the Gadwall pair was still present (a small number of these unobtrusive ducks have been annual winter visitors to the lake for the last decade), but just one male Shoveler was seen, with three females and two males the only Teal visible.  Other lake records on the same day included a single Grey Heron and 28 Canada Geese.  On the central grass area more than 100 Starling foraged near to 93 Lapwing, with more than 500 Black-headed Gull and 70 Lesser Black-backed Gull also resting and foraging.  Among them were the birds of the day, an adult and a first-winter Common Gull, the first of their species to be recorded at the site since the winter of 2012.  Despite their name these are by no means the most frequently seen gulls locally, even though large numbers are reported annually from farmland along the western Cotswold fringes and along the Avon and lower Severn valleys.  The largest groups yet recorded in the Smestow Valley were just four adults flying over a snow-covered racecourse on 13/2/1991, four adults on Dunstall Park on 24/11/2002 and four birds moving south eastwards over the same site on 18/8/2005)

NB.  Dunstall Park is a closed commercial site.  Access is strictly controlled.

 

PS.  Trumpeted in the headline, but then no mention of Blackcaps in last week’s posting.  Sorry about that, and so for the record, there were sightings of single males (perhaps the same bird) on feeders by Newbridge playingfield on November 25^th and December 29^th, and of a female briefly visiting the same site on January 5^th.   This warbler species has been a winter visitor to the same garden for the last four years.