The Wondering Birder: A Quiet Sunday

13/07/14-

Hi readers, it's time for another post full of various tales of the currently very quiet world of birding. This week things were very quiet but Sandwell Valley proved to be the main producer. But things remain very quiet overall. We got into the hide and sat in for another quiet morning. Black headed Gulls have begun to rise in numbers again with 30+ being around on the island, a few juvs were also around so I guess all these birds are coming back from their annual breeding locations. A total of three Commin Sandpipers we're around throughout the morning although we on,y really saw two throughout the morning with the third flying through. The odd LRP was around and the Oystercatchers are doing well with three showing (one chick) and the second chick being well hidden all the time, according to Mike in the hide there was a total of seven Oystercatcher during the morning but the extra birds were out of view from the hide.

Lapwing are on the rise with 10+ birds and a very young chick perhaps a few days old has appeared which was a nice surprise. Plenty of Swift, Housemartin, and Sandmartin were around all morning flying by the hide also. The Canada Geese are getting even more crazy with numbers now with up to 190 birds on the main lake and a single Greylag with them. Later into the morning Mike spotted a nice gull species flying in onto one of the rafts in the form of a Med Gull, the bird was a juvenille probably one of last years and showed well throughout our time in the hide and was a nice surprise and a yeartick.

So with the morning spent at the valley we decided with their being so many Common Scoters about that Chasewater was a worth a kick with it being such a big place it may have brought some in. It turned out that wasn't the case, Chasewater was even more quiet than usual, there was just a few lesser black backs, a black headed gull and the other usual suspects.

So we moved to a Clayhanger seen as we hadn't been down their for a good while now we decided to get over there. We started off by hearing a Yellowhammer calling well something that is becoming a bit more scarce nowadays. A Great crested Grebe showed well with three chicks, and a single Oystercatcher was around. There were around 6 or 7 Common Terns as well as plenty of Black headed Gulls with some juvs. Other than that and a tone of Canada Geese Ryders mere seemed very quiet. So we moved to the marsh which seems to be doing well with breeding birds, at least 9 Tufted ducklings were around in a joint group of two females, and if I remember correctly there was also 3 Cygnets around to. Also there was a single Buzzard and Grey Heron. On the return leg up the mineral line path I caught something in my ear just as we were climbing the fence back to Ryders Mere, a distant Grasshopper Warbler is what it sounded like, we got closer to the bird and it did sound very much like one, with shorter call bursts, but when we were further away the bursts were much more continuos, after a while the bird stopped calling and presumably flew away.

So not the worst of days overall, still things are very quiet, the wildfowl numbers over Sandwell Valley are really increasing so it's always worth a look through them to see if any rarer wildfowl start to turn up.

That's it for this week, another post next week sometime either Sunday or Monday most likely, I will post on twitter when the next post is up so when it is up you will be the first to know. Before I fully finish here's a couple of pics from Sunday,