And the birding year begins!

Hi readers, and a warm welcome to 2014 to you all, up until today I haven't been birding since late 2013 so I was all geared up for todays birding. We decided to watch our usual haunts today and get off to a great start to the birding year which is what we did. As usual on Sunday's RSPB Sandwell Valley was on the agenda and was a great place for us to start off our 2014 birding year. In all honesty things were very quiet today in the hide, on arrival we had just missed a Water Rail in the reeds near number 5 post and typical for us the bird made no more appearances. However numbers of wintering ducks have risen in my opinion, a couple of Wigeon made an appearance along with a strong 21 Goosander on the main lake, and as usual Teal and Shoveller also made appearances in plentiful numbers.

Black headed Gulls were everywhere today in much larger numbers than usual, sadly there was no sign of any Med Gulls but there is often one early on in the year so its possible one could turn up at some point. Furthermore still no sign of any Golden eye on Forge Mill lake which is somewhat surprising seen as there has been an annual visit from at least two birds the fact that they made only one appearance last year is surprising but birds can be unpredictable with where they choose to go.

The visit to Sandwell Valley gave me quite a few birds for my year list, here's all the main sightings that we got from our visit,

RSPB Sandwell Valley- Goosander x21, Snipe x1, Black headed Gull 100+, Grey Heron x1, Cormorant x2, Coot 10+, Moorhen 5+, Tufted Duck 10+, Wigeon x2, Lapwing 30+, Gadwall 5+, Bullfinch x2, Shoveller x3, Great crested Grebe x1, Sparrow Hawk x1, Fieldfare 5+, Teal 5+.

So with the RSPB part of the valley done we decided to head over to Swan Pool seen as a Great Northern Diver had been around for the past week or so, although we had seen them quite recently we wanted to see one for the year and also wanted to take advantage of the influx of the birds that has been happening recently. With the weather closing in on us it became a sort of flying visit, the bird popped up almost instantly in the middle of the main pool, a stunning example of a winter plumage adult Great Northern Diver not to far away from us. I was also informed unofficially that it was a first for the valley, one birder who said he had been around the valley for many years said he had never heard of one being around the area so it could be a valley first which I have to admit is exciting.

So with the Diver seen and on the year list we moved on towards Clayhanger, On this occasion we on the marsh side of the area rather than Ryder's Mere, this was mainly because we had no Wellies on without them I think we may have lost our shoes on the way along the old railway path. We were not really looking at water birds on this occasion we decided to focus more on the smaller finch species when at Clayhanger, we were specifically looking for Lesser Redpoll which didn't seem to be around, however we did have a few smaller birds for the year list including Goldfinch and Greenfinch along with a few others. In one of the fields there was a mass of Redwing and Fieldfare which was something nice to see. Anyway here's the main sightings from the visit,

Clayhanger Marsh- Goldfinch 10+, Great spotted Woodpecker x1, Black headed Gull 20+, Wigeon 10+, Mallard x1, Sparrow Hawk x1, Buzzard x1, Blue Tit 5+, Great Tit 5+, Greenfinch 5+, Fieldfare 20+, Redwing 20+.

We also got a few House Sparrows in some hedges and interestingly a partially leucosticte Blackbird that was an interesting bird to look at. After Clayhanger we took the logical choice to get over to Chasewater, with plenty of rarer Gulls turning up we couldn't miss the chance of getting a few of them on our year lists. So the 2014 gulling began, and I have to admit it was absolutely freezing out there and what didn't help was my canvas style shoes that literally make your feet colder than they would be without them! But we stuck with it and decided to do most of our gulling on the wooden balcony on the south side of the reservoir, and the gulling fully began. We were put onto a Yellow Legged Gull which we had seen a little earlier on in the evening and for a long while that was about all we saw in terms of rarer/ scarcer Gulls. Constant searching through the gulls was beginning to draw a blank until we heard a shout from another birder who was keeping an eye on the left side of the lake GLAUCOUS GULL was of course what he said. It was a juvenile bird that was showing very well amongst the other larger Gulls, we watched the bird for five or ten minutes and the retreated from the cold.

Other main species seen included a single female Goosander, and 20+ Goldeneye, here's all of our main sightings from the evening,

Chasewater Reservoir- Glaucous Gull x1, Black headed Gull 1000+, Lesser Black backed Gull 500+, Greater black backed Gull 10+, Yellow Legged Gull x1, Herring Gull 500+, Golden eye 20+, Tufted Duck 5+, Coot 10+, Goosander x1.

So that's it for this week folks, my year list stands at a relatively small 47 species but I hope to advance from this number next weekend, I hope you all have a great week and keep an eye out for the post next Sunday or even before.

Thanks for reading and have a good week all- WMBB