News Round Up

Brief Highlights of recent visits to the valley (vis mig info is from top of Barleyfield):

21/8/13 - Calm dry overcast light SW

24 Greenfinch SW
1 Swallow
9 Swift
Collared Dove South
2 Stock Dove Barleyfield
5 Adult and 2 Juv Pied Wagtail Meccano Bridge Playingfields
Nuthatch Graisley Culvert
Willow Warbler singing SW corner Barleyfield
Blackcap fledged at top of Barleyfield, as had Common Whitethroats but apparently left nest site area immediately
31 Jackdaw S. Peters Playingfields

22/8/13 Dry calm morning, light Southerlies

57 Canada Geese SW
14 Greenfinch SW with 6 local birds at top of Barleyfield
FEMALE/JUVENILE REDSTART, seen briefly as it moved up the Western Border of the Barleyfield. It then flew off South over Compton Hill Drive
5+ young Bullfinch Graisley Culvert area
6 Swallow feeding high over the Barleyfield for over half hour in the warm calm conditions
2+ Coal Tit at Prefab Weir
Common Whitethroat calling Graisley Culvert

Painted Lady sunbathing near Compton Lock

29/8/13 Cool calm, dry clear Light SW increasing

89 Canada Geese SW
23 Greenfinch SW
2 Swallow South
3 Swift South plus 1 South over The Paddocks later
2 Starling SW
Adult and Juvenile Nuthatch Western Border of Barleyfield (dispersal birds, since Nuthatch have been scarce/absent in mid-section this Spring and Summer)
3 Great Spotted Woodpeckers around South end of Barleyfield
Female Sparrowhawk over top Barleyfield
3+ Blackcap at The Barleyfield Crossings and 2+ at Hanging Gardens
Common Whitethroat, Willow Warbler and Juvenile Chiffchaff at Graisley Culvert area
3 Chiffchaff singing at The Crossings
1+ Chiffchaff singing 2+ juvenile Blackcap, Juvenile Willow Warbler and Juvenile Common Whitethroat in main Paddock
Chiffchaff singing at Tennis Club
Painted Lady in Canopy near Station
Small Copper near The Crossings

1+ Coal Tit at Compton Lock
Kingfisher off the Brook and over Compton Lock with 2+ Goldcrest nearby.
11 Pied Wagtail, mainly juveniles at Artificial Pitch and track at The Academy

31/8/13 Dry, clear cool Light Westerlies

18 Greenfinch South with 6+ local
1 Swallow South
2 Starling SW
Green Woodpecker
Male Sparrowhawk East over top of Barleyfield
Presumed family group of 3 Great Spotted Woodpeckers together just SW of Barleyfield, where feeding trips were recorded earlier in the year, with another female calling at the same time at the top of The Barleyfield
3 Grey Wagtail, at least one of which was a juvenile, dropped into Graisley Culvert then SW.
5+ young Bullfinch and 3+ Juvenile Goldfinch at Graisley Culvert with a Coal Tit calling there and a Collared Dove over East
Devil's Coach Beetle under log on Railway walk by Crossings
2 Chiffchaff singing, 2+ young Blackcap, Common Whitethroat and 2 Jays at Hanging Gardens

1/9/13 Calm, dry, light cloud cover, light SW increasing

28 Lesser Black-backed Gull SW
Grey Wagtail NE just after dawn
Green Woodpecker Western Border
243 Woodpigeon SW, numbers increasing presumably as more fields are harvested in South Staffs. Birds consistently fly West to meet the valley then turn SW down the valley and can be seen doing this as far as the bins allow to the North.
Sub-adult Herring Gull SW
19 Greenfinch South with 6+ local birds
Pipit Species SW
Male and Female Sparrowhawk briefly in the air together over the Western border
Nuthatch calling from Eastern Border
13 Goldfinch, over half of which were juveniles at last!!
10 adult and 14 Juvenile Moorhen on canal
1+ Coal Tit calling at Meccano Bridge and 1+ at The Academy
Wasp nests just South of Meccano Bridge on canal towpath and another opposite Tennis Club
Warblers in Paddock as per Ian Phillips update and Nuthatch calling there
Meadow Pipit lifted off Barleyfield then South West
Coal Tit calling SW corner of Barleyfield
11 House Martin South
16 Pied Wagtail and 14 Starling on Meccano Bridge Playingfields
2 Stock Dove at Compton Park Wetland

Welcome back to Gareth Clements who provided this update:

"5th sept at dunstall park , 6 teal, 8 snipe, skylark, 1 prob white wag, 1 yellow wag , 1 grey wag, 35 pied wag, 3 shoveler, 1 on lake plus 14 sw cormorant, kestrel, 51  lbb gull, 200 bh gull, 1 green sand, otherwise quiet
Gareth and angus"

SPOTTED'S SPOTTED, SO NOW IT'S 99 . . .

Dunstall Park, August 18th 2013


10.15 to 11.30, westerly breeze, broken clouds, warm.


Yes, as Chris, Kevin and Gareth are proving by example, the great migration is under way, and the valley is starting to become a fly-through route for huge numbers of passage birds on their way to their wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.  Would love to join the dawn-watch boys and risk a stiff neck, but even though the spirit's willing, a run of late nights means the flesh is somewhat weak.  So, mid-morning checks on a few favoured stopping-off sites for migrants may be the best option  . . .


Down at Dunstall it's all quiet on the lake, with one of the juvenile Little Grebe still present, preening and washing near the Smestow brook run-off.  A female Shoveler feeds in the shallows, a typically wary female Teal angles fast and low round the island and disappears, a pair of Moorhen feed with their four spindly-legged dark chicks around the base of the shoreline vegetation, and two Grey Wagtail fly in to pick their way along the edge of the water.  Forty or so Starling,  mostly juveniles,  sunbathe on the island bramble bank as a Coot half-heartedly pulls spiked aquatic grass around its feet to form what appears to be a breeding mound.  They've had a great year, but this might be a nest to far.  There are mewing calls from the canalside oak copse  near the Water Bridge, and a
juvenile Common Buzzard emerges to flap its way on to the nearby television tower.  At least one immaculately plummaged youngster has been roosting in the copse for some days now, and using the tower as a perch, it calls incessantly as it awaits the arrival of its parents.  On this occasion it leaves, and, mobbed by a Crow, disappears low along the line of the canal. A few minutes later a rather ragged adult Buzzard flies in the same direction, and soon afterwards possibly it and two other birds are circling in the warm air over the hawthorn wood north of Hordern Road as a female Sparrowhawk  flaps and glides her way over the lake towards the Farndale housing estate (she may well be one of a pair that have been feeding two vociferous young hawks for the last fortnight just to the south in Newbridge wood).  All quiet along the western edge of the racecourse, so on towards the north west corner, where a bank of elderberry, bramble and hawthorn always proves fruitful at this time of year, attracting warblers and other small migrants in the late summer and early autumn.  The berries aren't quite ripe yet, but  twitching leaves reveal juvenile Blackcap and Bullfinch, while Goldfinch, Wren and Robin song and the distinctive contact calls of young Chiffchaff  show that other species, including Greenfinch, Blackbird and Blue Tit, are present.  Suddenly, a slim grey shape projects itself from the top of a bare branch, twisting upwards and outwards into the sunlight, then darting back to the same shaded perch, the bird sitting alert, grey-streaked forehead, dark eyes switching, scanning, waiting for the prey that gives it its name, our first Spotted Flycatcher for the year, and our 99th species for 2013.  In the late 1980s at least four pairs bred between Newbridge and Aldersley, but there was a dramatic crash in the number of returning adults in 1990, and soon afterwards the species was extinct locally as a breeding bird. Nationally numbers have plummeted in the last two decades for reasons not yet fully understood, so any glimpse of this delightful visitor (its grey-brown plumage suggesting flour led to its Northamptonshire nickname of White Baker.  In Kent it was the Post Bird) is now a bonus.  It was the icing on the morning's cake, and I didn't have to get up early . . .                  
   

(NB.  Dunstall Park is a restricted commercial site.  Access is strictly controlled).


WHAT A GEM AS WE HIT THE HUNDRED!


Compton barleyfield, August 19th 2013


10.30 to 12.45, westerly breeze, broken clouds, warm.

Yesterday morning's outing gives incentive for another migrant search, this time to a site which in the past has provided the "fringe habitat" for a rather special species which can be seen annually in small numbers as it passes through the valley. So, today's target is a bird that only last week featured on the BBC Radio's Tweet of the Day series, a species that on migration loves the edges of grassland and other open sites, feeding in low bushes and along hedge lines.  Just as yesterday's bank of sunlit vegetation on Dunstall Park provided cover and food for small passage birds, so the line of hawthorn and elder bushes along the old railway side of the barleyfield may, fingers crossed, draw down our target bird.  At first there's nothing, it's calm and hot, mid-morning, a feeling that it's now too late for much to happen, but stick to it, check the bushes again, but still no movement, if anything's about it's staying well hidden.  Then, suddenly in the middle of an elder bush, a reddish-orange patch underneath a black visor topped by a striking thin white line.  We're in luck, and it's a full adult male, a gem of a bird looking out over the shimmering waves of brown grass, our first Common Redstart for 2013, and the 100th species to be recorded along the valley this year.  It's elusive, twice disappearing only to reappear some minutes later further along the line of bushes.  A Chiffchaff  flies at it suddenly (how aggressive this little species can be on migration) and it drops on to an umbellifer stem, sideways on, its orange tail quivering ("start" is from "steort", the Old English for tail.  Regional nicknames have included Fanny Redtail, Fire Tail, and the wonderful Yorkshire tag of  Flirt Tail).  A dog walker approaches, unaware of its presence, and the bird flies up and away over the banks of blackthorn towards the old railway.  I rather think it's gone for good, but what a star in passing . . .