Saturday Birding

Hi readers, this week instead if Sunday our birding was done today on a Saturday, reason being is I have plans tomorrow that prevent me from doing any birding. Also another change for this week was that RSPB Sandwell Valley was not visited by us, Inknow isn't it a shock! But we still visited a couple of place and managed to see two rarer birds one of which we have already seen. 

Firstly we decided to go up to Gailey, a Juv female Scaup had been around this morning so we thought it had to be a good idea to go and take a look. The bird had originally been seen on the main sailing lake so we began having a look over there to see if it was about, at first things looked bleak, but then all the Tufted Ducks decided to fly up and I got a glimps of a bird that looked interesting. The Tufteds all flew over to the fishing pool, and on looking for them we found they had all grouped together therefore making it easier for us to find the bird. 

So we walked along the fishing pool until we got to the far side where the Tufteds were along with some Pochards, and after a few seconds I was onto the bird, it was constantly Preening and was a positive Female Juv Scaup the bird was very easy to view and we stayed for 10 to 15 minutes and then left. Here's the main sightings from the visit, 

Gailey Res- Scaup (juv female) x1, Great crested Grebe 5+, Little grebe5+, Pochard 5+, Phesent 10+ (game release), Mistle Thrush x1, Grey Wagtail x1, Cormorant 5+, Grey Heron x1, Black headed Gull 20+. 

See as. Toning else had turned up we decided to go for the Great Northern Diver at Chasewater for a second time, as we knew it had been seen this morning we thought it could only be a success, on arrival the bird was simple to find and was directly in front of the sailing club, we looked at it for a couple of minutes and decided to proceed to the dam to look at the gulls that were on the far side. There was nothing to rare amongst the gulls and the Diver was again very mobile and seemed to turn up all over the place. But we did get good views of the bird, and also my first Goldeneye of the season turned up which was another extra treat. There was plenty of Greater Black backed Gulls also with Herring and Lesser Black backs to. Here's our main sightings, 

Chasewater Res- Great Northern Diver x1, Greater Black backed Gull 10+, Lesser Black backed Gull 20+, Herring Gull 20+, Black Headed Gull 20+, Goldeneye (fem) x1, Cormorant x1. 

So you can see not a terrible day of birding at all, a couple of good rarities and they were quite easy to find also. Although there is little more to write about this week you can only judge the birding day as a success. There should be a post next Sunday as usual if not I shall notify you most likely on Twitter. 

Thanks for reading and have a good week all- WMBB