Early year twitching.

Hi readers, this is the second time I have done this post seen as the blog decided to delete the draft, so here we go again. Today was a day for early year twitching to see what rarer/ scarcer birds we could get on our yearlist. Our first visit went to Gailey Reservoir where A Great white a egret and Northern Diver had been seen throughout the last couple of weeks or so, so we decided to go and get the birds. On arrival things weren't looking to good, we had got quick views of the Great Northern Diver which was nice to see but the two other birders that were there hadn't seen the Egret as of yet, I did notice the bird had been reported at 9am which was a mere hour and a half before we had arrived so we thought the bird had to be somewhere. 

So I had a little hunch the Egret would be on the fishing pool so take a guess where we walked to next? When we arrived at the fishing pool the sunlight was blinding, we could barely see a thing, but luckly as I about to explain why some of the reeds on the left side of the pool were just about viewable without loosing our eye site. And on looking at this reeds in my Scope I was presented with a beautiful Great White Egret, the bird was showing well and was still when we left, however the Diver just disapeared from view we have no idea where it went, the possibility it that the bird had an under water hideout with plenty of Oxygen (probably not). Any forget my silliness here's the main sightings, 

Gailey Reservoir- Great Whitw Egret x1, Great Northern Diver x1, Greylag Goose x2, Little Grebe 2+, Great crested Grebe 10+, Canada Goose 5+, Coot 20+, Moorhen x1, Buzzard x1, Grey Heron x2, Cormorant 5+.

So after success at Gailey we decided to try our hand at a little more success, so decided to head over to Engine lane where a Glossy Ibis had been for the last few days or so, after walking up the wrong path for half an hour we eventually got to a field where other birders were sitting round, the question was, was the Ibis in this field? I'm sure you'd like to know the answer, and that answer was a sad no, although the bird had apparently been showing extremely well early on in the day it had flown off quite a long time before we had arrived and we were struck for time so couldn't stay and wait around for a while. 

This evening we decided to recuperate some of our birding success for the day by checking out the Gull roost at Bartley Green reservoir which turned out to be a good choice. We looked around for half an hour and just before leaving I decided to get out the car and ask one of the other birders if had, had any luck with the Gulls, he quickly put me onto a First Winter Caspian Gull with all the right features that gave us the ID off bird, Heavy bill, Pale white head, Black primary's, and a brown back, all features  I deem to show the bird in hand. I looked at the bird in the other birders much better scope and to be honest the light was getting so dim my scope became pointless, I left the other birder in peace with Caspian Gull on the yearlist, sadly because we A had to leave in a hurry, and B because the light was bad I was the only person to see the bird I tried to refind it but couldn't, Chasewater may be in the agenda to see another one for both of us next week. Here's all the main sightings from this visit, 

Bartley Green Reservoir- Caspian Gull (fw) x1, Yellow legged Gull 5+, Lesser black back gull 100s, Herring Gull 100s, Black headed Gull 1000s, Goldeneye x2, Mallard 5+. 

So not a bad day of twitching this week, next week things will be back to normal with visits to Sandwell Valley and probably Chasewater depending on what's around, if not before there should be a post Next Sunday as usual. 

Thanks for reading and have a good week all-WMBB