Chew Valley lake 30/11/13- great birding

Herons green

• 100+ pochards
• 2 goosanders- male+ female
• Tufted ducks
• 3 mute swans
• 10+ pied wagtails
• A magpie
• A great tit
• 30+ gulls
• 4 lapwing
• Great crested grebe
• 70+ cormorants going into roost
• 2 PINK FOOTED GEESE- I have never seen these before and are very rare this far south and are very rare in the Avon/Somerset area
• Poss  FERRIGINOUS DUCK adult male not been reported here for a few weeks.

  

  Pink footed geese adults

 Goosander male

 Cormorant flock

Pochard (top left) possible Ferriginous duck (right) with tufted (bottom)

Woodford lodge

• A grey heron
• 2 little grebes
• Great crested grebe
• Fieldfare
• The BLACK THROATED DIVER juv still coming close occasionally but staying quite distant
  
• Black throated diver juv

Dam

• 7 tufted ducks
• A pochard
• Mallards
• 8 great crested grebes
• 3 goosander males
• 4 Goldeneye- 2 males, 2 females
• LONG TAILED DUCK- juv, never seen this species before and this was individual was feeding quite distantly

  

   Long tailed duck juv

  
• Goldeneye females

Garden sightings 30/11/13- thrushes

A lovely sunny day had:

Flying over

• Corvids including a very high flying jackdaw
• Gulls
• Chaffiches
• Redwings
• Fieldfare
• Great spotted woodpecker

Trees

• Starlings
• Blackbird pair
• 10+ Redwing
• 8 fieldfare
• 3 blue tits
• House sparrows
• Collard doves
• Wood pigeons
• Dunnock

Opposite house

• Black headed gull
• Common gull
• Pied wagtail
• House sparrows
• Jackdaws
  
• Common gull with only half a leg

My garden

• one very inquizative robin which came only a few feet away from me
• A blue tit went down one of the hollow poles and came back up a minute later
• 10+ house sparrows
• 5 jackdaws
• Adult male blackbird
• 5 starlings

Severn house farm- Berkeley power station 23/11/13 sightings

On the walk I sighted

• 5 fieldfare
• A redwing
• 30+ lapwing
• 5 curlews
• A meadow pipit flock
• Carrion crows
• Bull finch calling
• Long tailed tit flock heard
• A blackbird
• 5 mallards
• Gulls
• Corvids
• 2 wrens
• Probable SIBERIAN CHIFFCHAFF in a reedbed. Feeding in the reeds very low down (normal for species), calls were different to normal chiffchaff's and the plumage was a lot like the Slimbridge WWT individual so a good candidate.
  
   Probable Siberian chiffchaff
  
  

Recent Garden highlights.

Wednesday 20th

Flying over

• 4+ redwing flew over between 6:15- 7:35
• 35+ redwing over Berkeley town centre
• 3 fieldfare
• 300+ gulls- mostly common and black headed
• 1 peregrine ad

Friday 22nd

Flying over town centre

• 90+ wood pigeons
• 30+ redwing
• 2 fieldfare

Saturday 23rd

Flying over

• Corvids including 2 ravens
• Starlings
• Chaffinches
• 60+ fieldfare- more fieldfare than redwing today over
• 40+ redwing
• 1 Peregrine- briefly circled gaining height distantly before scaring everything as it flew high south.
• 1 CURLEW- A garden first. Heard calling distantly twice before it flew North and over the house.

Trees

• 1 fieldfare- briefly
• 1 great spotted woodpecker- adult. Sighted feeding on the bare tree before being scared by corvids but later sighted flying towards the tree over the houses but did a U turn and headed back north.
• Common birds such as
• Blue tit pair
• Great tit
• Collard doves
• Starlings
• Corvids
• Chaffinches
• Gold finches

 Great spotted woodpecker (male?)

 in nice plumage with starlings

Collard dove in garden this morning

Garden sighting highlights: Goldcrest, thrushes and a garden first...

Saturday 16th

Tree

• 1 Goldcrest- 1st of Autumn
• 3 blackbirds- Normal adult male and female plus a new 1st winter individual which only stayed for a few minutes.

Flying over

• 100+  Fieldfare/redwing
• 50+ wood pigeons- notable increase of these birds with several hundreds in the large flocks.

Sunday 17th

Trees

• 3+ redwing
• 5 fieldfares
• Goldfinches
• House sparrows

Flying over

• Meadow pipit
• 50+ redwing/fieldfare
• 2 LESSER REDPOLL flew over north calling and this is the first record of this species over the garden as well as a first for me.

BLACK THROATED DIVER, Goldeneye, Goosanders and more... Chew valley Lake 17/11/13

Herons green

• Male Goldeneye
• Cormorants
• 5 Goosanders
• Teal
• Mallards
• Gadwall
• Tufted duck
• 5 little egrets
• Grey heron
• Peregrine
• 5+ great crested grebes
• No sign of Ferriginous duck

Picnic site 1

Goldeneye Male

• 2 Male goldeneyes
• Mallards
• Meadow pipit
• 8 cormorants
• 5+ great crested grebes
• No sign of Long tailed duck

Villice

• Tufted ducks
• A variety of distant ducks
• 3 green sandpipers
• No sign of Lesser scaup

Woodford lodge

• BLACK THROATED DIVER juv
• Cormorants
  

 

       

Black throated diver almost came as close as the Great northern diver did last week.

Bottom pic shows the diver "Snorkelling" as he's looking for fish.

 

GREAT NORTHERN DIVER at SARA Sharpness

I went down to SARA as I heard a report saying a great northern diver has floated past SARA early this morning and had actually flown onto the Old dock where it was showing very well.

 

The Great Northern diver came up to 10m away from me.

Sightings:

• 1 GREAT NORTHERN DIER
• 1 nuthatch calling
• 1 bull finch calling
• 50+ black headed gulls
• 2 coots
• A robin

PURPLE SANDPIER and SIBERIAN CHIFFCHAFF (Slimbridge WWT 9/11/13 sightings)

I went to Slimbridge as yesterday I received some exciting news. A 1st winter purple sandpiper had been found feeding extremely close to the observatory on the Rushy and was later roosted there as well. Luckily my monthly Slimbridge club is on the 2nd Saturday of the month so I was able to have a look if I could see this rare wader. They usually winter on the East and South coasts of Britain but a very small wintering population (2-7) winter down at Battery Point, Somerset. I Gloucestershire, the closest we get is one which  is usually found at Severn beach. For Slimbridge this is the 4th site record so this makes it even more special.
A Siberian chiffchaff was also sighted there today with a Scandinavian chiffchaff and the normal race which we get in Britain showing extremely well on the decoy boardwalk and from the Eco garden which was very nice to see. This would be my first confirmed record of this species as on a walk which I did in the Spring in Berkeley saw a look a like of the bird which I saw today. They are surprisingly tame and feed a bit on the ground so watching this bird fly around was very nice.
There was an American green winged teal but I decided not to look for it.
Firstly, I didn't have my binoculars.
Secondly they look identical to the European teal except from the American green winged teal has a vertical white stripe going down it's body.
Thirdly, there was 1500 teal, a garganey and this 1st winter American green winged teal meaning it would littrally be impossible to spot.

 

 1st winter PURPLE SANDPIPER

 

SIBERIAN CHIFFCHAFF

Other sightings

• 40+ curlew over
• 50+ black tailed godwits over
• 30+ pochards
• 30+ pintail
• 30+ lapwing
• 1 cormorant
• 4 bewick swans
• 40+ greylag geese
• Ferriginous/Pochard hybrid
• 1 chiffchaff
• Siberian chiffchaff
• Purple sandpiper

BEWICK SWANS 7/11/13 gaden sightings

Not much sighted this week but the highlights have been:

• 10+ mallards on the flooded fields
• 4 little egrets together on the flooded fields
• 2 redwing over on the 3/11/13
• 1 redwing over on the 5/11/13
• 30+ redwing over on the 6/11/13 (10+, 5 and a flock of 15 over the nearby school)

7/11/13 garden sightings

• 300+ gull- most black headed with common gulls flying away from the flooded fields.
• 10+ redwing flew over
• A garden wren.
• 1 cormorant
• 2 BEWICK SWANS- one very high individual came over the house at around 16:00 from the south and started circling over the houses before flying high NE. Then, a second individual flew over from the South, circled once and flew even higher NE. I told James Lees about this as he works at Slimbridge WWT and he told me they were Bewicks and that he'd seen them as well which was very good. This Is the 1st record of mine over the house so this is very good.
   
  
  
   
  
  
   

  

  One of the very high Bewick swans which flew over and circled today.