The Wondering Birder: Dummy searching, and Deers in a Tip!

Hi all, another round up of the days birding as usual for you to have a read through. RSPB Sandwell Valley our usual haunt seemed to be the. Out productive place to be today with a few good birds coming out of the place. Your most likely wondering why the post is titled Dummy Searching seems a little bit of a strange title does it not. Well it will become relevant soon enough if you read on. RSPB Sandwell was the first place we visited this week for a nice sit in the hide and hopefully some good species.

As the morning began it seemed we were only going to get the regular species, plenty of Wildfowl on Forge Mill Lake including Pochard, Teal and Shoveller and of course plenty of Tufted Duck as usual, we had a good look for half and hour or so with nothing really standing out to much. Around an hour or so after the hide opened we were payed a visit by the fire service and there was no fire, this time ey were apparently on a search and rescue exercise, I was told that various Dummies were placed around the Valley in different place and the Fire team had to find them, they had to have went round Forge Mill lake in a Speed Boat for the entire morning and when they gave up they went out on foot looking round the paths.

However they did in a sense help us out a bit, they spooked up all of the wildfowl which at first does seem like a bit of an annoying thing to do but It brought a surprise bird in that made the morning a lot more worth it. While watching the wildfowl flying over Forge Mill Lake, I caught view of something, a Bird of Prey, I stupidly went for my scope not my bins so didn't get to look at the bird, however Ian did and ID'd it as a Peregrine. We quickly ran out to the back of the hide and here it was in my bins a quite large Female Peregrine Falcon, we watched the bird attacking flying Wildfowl with no success, we then watched as it flew up extremely high and out of view.

We discussed that there are a variety of different areas the bird could have been from, including Birmingham, and Walsall which both have Peregrines living amongst the buildings in their Urban areas. We also got good views of Buzzards up to four at one point and a female Sparrowhawk. As well as this a Chiffchaff made an appearance behind the hide as well as plenty of them calling throughout the reserve. Here's the main sightings,

RSPB Sandwell Valley- Peregrine Falcon x1, Sparrowhawk x1, Buzzard x4, Tufted Duck 20+, Pochard 5+, Great Crested Grebe x2, Snipe 5+, Teal x2, Shoveller x1, Oystercatcher x2, Lapwing x1, Pied Wagtail x2, Chiffchaff x1, Long tailed Tit x2, Reed Bunting x1.

So not a bad morning overall, on the way towards our next area we had a Kestrel to which was go to see, and gave us a good number of birds of prey for today's birding. We decided to move on towards Chasewater for perhaps our last visit for a while as e place will begin to quieter down a lot soon, before getting to Chasewater we decided to stop of Cannock Tip a lovely smelling place that can be good for Gulls, I say can be. We got to the tip and there were no Gulls, none at all however there were 15 Red Deer hanging around on the tip where the gulls usually are, something we haven't seen for a while and a nice animal to see in the area. We did get our first Skylark of the year near Kingswood Pool which was another nice bird we have wanted to see for a yearlist for a while now.

So after that nice surprise we went over to a very quiet Chasewater, no Gulls, and barely anything else today, a very distant cormorant was showing the features of a Continental form of the species but we didn't get anywhere near a good enough view to know for sure, other than that all that was around was the odd Coot, and a few Lesser Black backed and Black headed Gulls, very quiet and this is a sign the Spring is beginning, from previous experience Chasewater usually quietness down in the Spring but you never know what may turn up.

There shall be a post next week but where we go depends on what turns up, so there's a bit of mystery with next weeks post, keep an eye out for any other posts. I end up doing within the week you never know what may be seen. Anyway here's a few pics from today, while at Chasewater I decided to take up a little speed boat photography to pass some time away.