A Flying Pie!

Hi readers, yes I'm posting again I have more to post about from another successful birding trip out last Sunday probably the best this year just because of the bird we managed to see. All week I had been keeping a check on the Pied Flycatcher that had been showing up at Saltwells Wood and was really hopeful of seeing it. So we decided to go and have a go at seeing the bird. Beforehand we hadn't heard the call of the Pied Fly so we kind of walked in not knowing what we were listening for. However we knew the area in which the bird had been showing or rather we more or less knew the area. Basically we were walking into a wood hoping to stumble into the Pied Fly.

So we stumbled into the wood, we knew it had been seen and heard singing towards the north side of the wood near a paddock, this was a quite easy area to find we just needed to find the bird. So we had a quiet walk around and first managed to see a few Nuthatches which turned out to be very friendly and showed well. After walking for a while I recognized a call that I had never heard before, it stood out to me and we decided to follow it in hope of it being the bird in question. We arrived where the mystery bird was calling and stood for quite a while trying to actually see it. After about 20 minutes or so we struck gold and a stunning male Pied Flycatcher came out and showed very well for us. The bird was stunning and I was so happy to see it. Neither of us had previously seen Pied Fly and we had been keeping an eye out for reports of the bird for a while in hope of seeing one, and it was great to see it so well. We stood around watching the bird call and fly around for a while after seeing it, and it was a great birding moment as a whole.

Record Shot of the Pied Flycatcher at Saltwells Wood. 

It was great that we saw the bird because it showed that sometimes you can recognize calls as being different and then find something you are looking for without even hearing the call beforehand. Anyway moving on now, we continued out walk with one of the woods volunteers who gave us a little bit of info about the area which was quite interesting to find out, we got over to the clay pits which is where our next interesting animal came from. The volunteer who's name I didn't catch told us of a Terrapin yes Terrapin that had been living in a small pond near the clay pits. Now come on its not everyday you see a Terrapin living out in the West Midlands. So we had a walk down to the ponds location it turned out there was more than one pond in the area but we managed to find the right one and there it was a Terrapin sitting quite calmly on the top of the water. Its interesting to see that animals that have been let go like this have the ability to survive in our climates especially when this one has apparently been around for a few years. Anyway bellow is a sort of picture of the Terrapin.

Its right there look a Terrapin 

So that's it for another post readers, two ticks in a week is nothing to complain about in my opinion, a Pied Flycatcher was a tick by the way. Something I have never been able to see I actually felt quite taken by seeing it so well.

Thanks for reading and good birding all- WB