Birding on a Saturday.

Hi readers, this week was a little different for me, I had to swap the days around a little to be able to get some birding done in the weekend, instead we went out birding on Saturday and pretty much kept our usual order of things. We began our day at Sandwell Valley I hadn't been in the hide for a good while on a Saturday so it was nice to be around. There was a good influx of Teal on the marsh up to six I think and a few of these flew over to he main pool. I saw a single Shovler troughoutnthe morning but I think there was more two of most. Pochards are still I. Good numbers, stil 5+ of the birds around the majority of them all hide underneath the trees on Forge Mill Lake here is a good mixture of male and female birds which is good to see.

Still Housemartins, Swallows, and Sandmartins are hanging on and a lot of them were feeding around then skies! In addition two Swift were also feeding with them, still a couple of hangers on feeding up for a big journey back to Africa. It was nice to see that there are still 4 Cygnets with a Swan around, they are looking well grown now and have there full adult shape. A Stock Dove dropped in as well as a Racing Pigeon which was something different to see, I remember seeing one sitting on the hide window shutters unafriad of us a couple of years ago. Other than that from the hide things were quite quiet. 

We had heard news that Spotted Flycatchers and Redstarts had been seen over at the Swan Pool Paddocks, so we decided to take a look over there hoping to see Redstarts mostly as it's actually been quite a while since I have seen one last. Swan Pool as in the Pool itself was quiet as it has been lately, there was a influx of juv Gulls on the posts mostly Lesser Black backs overall. There was the odd Great Crested Grebe with a single young bird knocking around through the walk around. With things quiet on the pool we moved to the paddocks and eventually made it to the paddock gate further up the path. At first we could see anything much, the highlight was a nice Green Woodpecker that was feeding on the ground not to far away. I decided to look into the left hand field, and checked through the bushes over there, almost instantly I was onto a SPOTTED FLYCATCHER the bird was feeding well on flies I would presume, then I moved further up e bush and in the surrounding areas and it was just one after the other there was up to 4 Spotted Flycatchers in one bush all together and I know on the Sunday there was even more than that. The birds showed quite well and offered good views.

The bush the Flycatchers were in, you can just see one in the picture.

Eventually we began to leave but noticed something else in the field around half way around the pool, this time it was a Blackcap in fact a few of them also feeding on flies in the same fashion as the Flycatchers. You can see with the Blackcaps also there was a decent influx of migrants lets not forget that there were apparently Redtarts knowking around to, overall the Valley has done very well this year for migrants, specifically on the birds return leg journey there seems to have been a good influx of returning birds this year which is good for guys like me that never saw them on there way through here. 

We were struck on time in the afternoon and were tied between going to Lutley or going to somewhere like Chasewater, as much as I wanted to see a Whinchat we had no time and I know Dad had seen two on Sunday, I however have never seen one which is hard to believe seen as they seem to be everywhere at the moment. Time was an issue on Saturday so we had to head for somewhere closer and this had to be Chasetwater. The Chasewater Reservoir is still very quiet, the main bird of note was a single Little Grebe there was a a mass of Coot and Canada Geese bit otherwise theee was little around in addition three Pied Wagtails were also about, bring on the gull roost ehhh! 

I have heard some news reccently to do with the Sandwell Valley complex that interested me, multiple articles have detailed of a Canada Goose cull of 220 birds in the Valley, this cull was done by Sandwell council they authorised and did it, and if everyone is honest the Canada Geese were becoming a problem, there were hundreds of them and they were taking over everything, it wasn't safe for children to be around them because they would be mobbed for food. As much as I hate the cull of any birds Canada Geese are an invasive species, let's be honest they shouldn't be here so sometimes these things have to be done to protect other species, and our local habitat for these reasons I can easily understand why the cull was done. I think the reason some people are upset is because they just see the council killing a bunch if innocent birds, but first you have to look over the facts and the trouble the geese have been causing, I think lowering the numbers of these birds is the only option, eventually without a cull there would be thousands of them and this wouldn't be in the distant future it would be quite soon, and you know for a fact that once the numbers got out of control people would be campaigning for a cull so Sandwell Council are just working to control the numbers and make sure things don't get out of control quickly, these things do eventually have to be done and we need to learn to understand that. 

On better news next Saturday will be the Autumn all dayer, Sandwell Valley will be taking part as far as I know so if anyone is around on that day it would be great if you could take part, we are literally trying to see as many birds as we can and there will be friendly competition between the sites like Belvide and Upton Warren, it will be the first all dayer I have done and it will be fun to take part, we should be able to put in a good showing, we have a good number if people taking part so far so we should do quite well.

Thanks for reading and have a good week all- WMBB