Birding Yesterday

Hi readers, its time for another post full of birding stories for you to read through, yes this week the post is a little later than usual, I had over 200 pictures to look through from yesterdays birding and I wanted to narrow them down to a small number so I spent a lot of time on the pictures yesterday so didn't get round to getting the post done, so here it is a day later than usual but with a good few pictures as well.

11/05/14

So yesterday turned out to be a quite regular day in our birding world, we decided to spend our time at our usual haunts Sandwell Valley and Bartley Green Reservoir. As usual we began our day at Sandwell Valley in the hide for what turned out to be a quite good morning in the hide. The weather wasn't perfect but at least it wasn't actually raining for once. Before hitting the hide we got great views of a Sedge Warbler calling from behind the hide and showing very well, its one of the loudest I've heard this year and gave out a great song, at one point it came right in front of my face to have a look at me, it took me by surprise otherwise I would have got an even better shot than the one I got bellow.

Sedge Warbler RSPB Sandwell Valley.

Brilliant to see the bird so well and it continued to show this well throughout the morning calling almost all the time. With the clouds being out in force the flies were low which brought down the Hirundines in great numbers, Swift, Swallow, Housemartin, and Sandmartin were all out in force yesterday and flying right by the hide, if any of you have attempted to photograph these birds in flight you will know how difficult it is Swifts especially, I did manage to get a couple that are worth putting up. 

Swallow, RSPB Sandwell Valley. 

Swallow, RSPB Sandwell Valley

The birds were flying around round in force all morning, on occasion they would disappear and then reappear out of no where, it was great to watch. We had our fair share of waders all morning, a Little Ringed Plover was around for most of the morning as well as a big 5 Oystercatcher in my opinion the extra three that have turned up were last years chicks as there were three last year they may have come back for a flying visit. 

We have some more great news in the form of breeding birds, yesterday a Great Crested Grebe chick was seen on one of the parents backs, to me it has to be a week or so old and its great to see they have successfully bread, lets hope the chick makes it to adulthood. Its a similar story for the Lapwings but with no evidence of success yet, they seem very aggressive towards Magpies and Lesser Black Backs so its likely they are nesting at least, we have seen them sitting in the same areas every week we get into the hide so they could be sitting on eggs. 

Lapwing, RSPB Sandwell Valley.

Two Common Terns were still around all morning and appear to be residing right next to the Oystercatchers, so it is possible they are nesting in the same area also. The Terns were also defending their nest very well if they have one which is very likely. The were very flighty yesterday and were giving us very close up views from the hide, gave us a chance to see how lovely they are. 

Common tern, RSPB Sandwell Valley

Common Tern RSPB Sandwell Valley. 

Common Tern RSPB Sandwell valley

We also had a lovely close up visit from a Grey Wagtail and going by the amount of photography I did yesterday guess what I took pictures of while it was around take a look at these, 

Grey Wagtail, RSPB Sandwell Valley

Grey Wagtail, RSPB Sandwell Valley

That wasn't the only Wagtail we had yesterday however, coming towards 1pm a bird dropped in that I didn't expect to see this year in the form of a YELLOW WAGTAIL something that has been scarcely seen in the valley this year and something I don't get the chance to see as often as I would like. I'm not to sure if it stayed throughout the afternoon but showed well when we were around. The bird was a bit far away to photograph. In addition to the birds mentioned, a Great Spotted Woodpecker flew out from behind the hide a Blackcap was around and we also heard a Willow Warbler. 

So not a bad day overall at Sandwell Valley, as mentioned earlier we got over to Bartley Reservoir and had some suspected Arctic Terns 3 at most, I wasn't perfectly sure but the bills looked slightly shorter and they had that bouncy flight about them, and four were reported on the reservoir so its likely we had some of those birds that were seen. 

So not a bad day overall, tones of shots as you can see, I want to start getting more photos on the blog so you should see big posts like this more often. Next week there will be another late post, I have an exam to prepare for next Monday so I want to use Sunday night to make sure I'm prepared, so I may do the post either on the Monday like today or I may do it on the following Sunday along with that days birding to. 

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of the week all- WMBB