Hi readers, I return for another post about my birding experiences in recent times. The latest twitch was afoot recently and it cam quite locally with a west midlands and national rarity turning up just up the road in the form of a Hoopoe. We headed up to the area where the bird had been seen with little knowledge as to where it actually was. However we asked a couple of passers by and found our bearings pretty quickly and made our way across the muddy field to see the bird. On arrival to a group of birders the bird was not in view and hidden away in some long grass. And then.....
A rather innocent looking man came with his binocular and small digital camera and flushed the bird up, this rather annoyed some birders but we weren't to upset this time as it got us to see the bird and actually really well as well. However the bird didn't sit around for long it flew up and landed on a fence near to where it was residing. Again it didn't stay there long either and flew up into tree overlooking a few gardens. The bird resided here for a while sheltering from the wind and gave us some good views until......
The return of Binoculars Camera Man! Yes this time I initially thought he'd flushed it by accident but then when he looked up to the tree where it was sitting he had to have known where it was, I thin field craft needed to be considered more here, this time the flushing was a little annoying because it put the bird out of view. So our half and hour or so visit to the Hoopoe was over, we had brief but good views of the bird so I can't complain, it has been a while since Ive seen a Hoopoe, the last one I saw being the Clayhanger bird that I believe passed away, still one of my favourite birds to see so we were well chuffed to see it! Below is a picture of the bird although as of writing this I haven't seen the picture and I know it isn't brilliant so you may just see an orange blob on the screen that looks minutely like a Hoopoe.
20/12/15-
The years end was near so we decided to get one last bird in for the years birding to end on. So we decided to have a afternoon look at the Great Northern Diver that was residing at Upper Bittel Reservoir. The bird had been there around for quite a while and we just hadn't had the chance to have a look at it but today was the day. We arrived at the reservoir and things were pretty easy it was there as soon as we arrived and showing very well. There is little story to tell for this one but I do have a few pictures of the bird for you to look at to tell the story in a better way.
Into the new year now we are almost caught up on the birding of the past month or so. Today was the first proper says birding I had the chance to do this year, although it was quite a way through January that is the truth. We decided to head over to Kinver and take a look at the Pink Footed Geese that were hanging around, however the geese were not around on arrival and we looked twice and there were no geese in sight. Goose failure led us to our second birding adventure that being just down the road to where a large group of Brambling and associated finches had been residing for the past week or so. On arrival it looked like another dip which would have been devastating for the day as a whole, we drove up and down the street a couple of times an then bang a stunning looking Brambling turned up in the bushes, and after that a tone more turned up and showed very well, a mixed flock of finches appeared including Brambling, Linnet, Lesser Redpoll, and Chaffinch. The Brambling were the stars of the show and showed very well throughout the visit. In the fields surrounding we also had a group of three Skylark calling which was a surprise and also a single Sparrow-hawk.
Thanks for reading and sticking around and good birding to all- WB
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