A successful evenings birding

Hi readers, this evening John Holian gave me a call and asked whether I fancied joining him on some birdwatching round Belvide in hope of getting a few summer migrants. When we arrived we were greeted by a Goldcrest jumping around in the trees, we then proceeded to walk towards the feeders where we sat in the hide, I was hoping to get a good lifer for me in the form of Brambling, after around five minutes we saw 3 Brambling sitting together high up in the trees I was very happy with seeing them seen as I have been after one for a while and we ended up with 3. We then began to walk to the main reservoir hides where we hoped to get a few Herundines. At first things looked quiet  with a few Goldeneye still around along with a lot of Great crested Grebes but then we were presented with views of a flying Kingfisher that flew towards the dam.

After seeing the Kingfisher we heard that a Corn Bunting was around and decided to try and get some views of it, to do this we had to walk towards the dam where some birders were looking at it, they told us the bird had just flown and they then promptly left, we viewed quite good numbers of Yellowhammer in the bushes, then virtually 30 seconds after the birders we met left the Corn Bunting returned we viewed the bird for around 10 minutes and I happened to turn left to look onto the lake and noticed a group of around ten Herundines the group consisted of Swallow, House Martin and Sand Martin these were the first me or John had seen this year so they were good to see. Just before we left we got another view of the Kingfisher as it flew from the dam. Heres out main sightings from the walk around Belvide,

Belvide Reservoir- Kingfisher x1, Brambling x3, Goldeneye 10+, Great crested Grebe 10+, Mute Swan 10+, Canada Goose x2, Little Grebe x2, Great Spotted Woodpecker x1, Green Woodpecker x1, Corn Bunting x1, Yellowhammer 10+, House Martin x1, Swallow 5+, Sand Martin x1, Kestrel x1, Tree Sparrow x1.

After our visit to Belvide we decided to have a quick look at Gailey in hope of getting some views of the 1st winter Little Gull that was still around, before we even got chance to park the car we were met with views of great numbers of Herundines mainly Swallow and Sand Martin, after getting good views of these birds we decided to move onto the reservoir. After parking the car I heard the call of the White fronted Geese we then got some great views of the geese flying past us multiple times. We then got to the reservoir and couldn't see the Little Gull any where we had a walk around to see what else we could get and we were quite successful. We first were alerted to a group of Reed Buntings  feeding on the ground we noticed that one of the birds was a Blackcap (male) which was a nice surprise to see, it was also strange to see the bird feeding on the ground as they are usually in bushes hiding away.

We then continued our walk along the reservoir and again got some more little surprises. the main one being 3 Yellow Wagtail along with a Meadow Pipit these birds were brilliant to look at one of the wagtails was a brilliant bright yellow and was magnificent to watch. We then decided to end our evenings birdwatching here's our main sightings from Gailey,

Gailey res- Yellow Wagtail x3, Meadow Pipit 5+, White Fronted Goose x2, Blackcap x1, Reed Bunting x3, Sand Martin 7+, Swallow 10+,Cormorant 10+, Greylag Goose 10+, Canada Goose 10+, Fieldfare 5+.
To me that was a successful evenings birdwatching, it is quite amazing what you can see in a couple of hours you can see that in the sightings lists. For me my favourite bird of the day was the Brambling, I have wanted to see one for a long time and when you finally connect with a bird you want to see its a great moment. Any way it looks as if it will be a visit to Sandwell Valley on Sunday which could either be very quiet or very productive and I'm hoping for the first one.

Thanks for reading, have a good weekend all- WMBB

Also thanks to John for a good evenings birding.