Goodbye 2013.

Hi readers, as the end of 2013 is on its way today was a chance to do some last minute birding which turned out to be reasonable successful. We did visit Sandwell Valley but spent very little time there, with the hide closed and us wanting to get other birds in Worcestershire we decided to make it a quick trip. The main birds that turned up were the usual ones, around 10 or eleven Goosander were on the main lake, along with two long awaited Widgeon.  Lapwing were also on the main island in good numbers otherwise it was just the usual suspects that were around.

So with our quick look at Sandwell Valley complete we decided to head over to Worcestershire for another attempt at the Great grey Shrike that had been near Lower Bittel reservoir, last week we had no idea where the right place to look for the bird was, but this week we had a better idea we knew exactly where it was. On arrival to the location on the B4120 near Hopwood, on the horizon was a group of birders which is always a good sign. We walked up to the area they were and on the way caught a Kingfisher flying across a field which came as a surprise. I was directed to where the bird had been by a couple of birders, I luckily caught the bird flying and got it in my scope. The Shrike then landed in a bush near a big tree in the middle of the field where it stayed for a while.

The bird did seem very aggressive it chased Long tailed Tits in a bush for a good period of time and also chased off a woodpecker when it arrived in the tree it was in, as well as being aggressive the bird also seemed to be on the move for a lot of the time but we did get a perfect view of it as it landed right on the very top of the tree. So after seeing the Shrike we decided to move on to another quite lovely species of bird that was just up the road.

Along a road interestingly names Twatling Road had been reports of 50-100+ Brambling so we promptly decided to have a look. On driving down the road we noticed a few smaller sized birds moving around the trees, we also noticed a Raven flying over the wood. At first the smaller birds appeared to just be Chaffinches but in the corner of my eye I spotted a Brambling with them. So we walked further into the wood and found tones of the birds, I'm not exactly how many birds there were but there had to be at least 20 around the wood. Before our birding day ended we had a look around the Lickey Hills and found a single Goldcrest and great numbers of Coal Tits. Other than that our birding day came to a close with a few good birds seen to end 2013 birding year.

I know its been a short post this week but I will try to get a 2013 birding sum up post done either tomorrow or on New years Eve so keep an eye out for that one. Along with that Next Sunday should be the next post I do and I'm not to sure where we will be going on that day so you never know what we may see. As usual thanks for reading the blog and also I would like to thank those who helped me out with my questionnaire that I needed to get people to fill in.

Thanks for reading and have a great new year all- WMBB