Garden Birds

Sunday, 2 February 2014

2/2/14 Garden sigtings- A few good birds

Very mild winter
Very mild so all the birds are singing earlier and a robin and blackbird pair has been found breeding already!

Flying over

Jackdaws
Crows
Herring gulls
Common gulls
Black headed gulls
Wood pigeons
2 shelducks

Trees

6 blackbirds- 2 males and 4 females (one female "Whitey" which was sighted last winter.
Wood pigeon
1 magpie
House sparrows
2 great tits
2 blue tits
Starlings
Collard dove
1 robin- singing
1 song thrush - second day now and singing so a breeding possibility.
1 BLACKCAP- male in the tree briefly and photographed but only showed for about a minute before disappearing. This could be an over wintering bird so further sightings may come.

Garden

Robin
4 blackbirds- 3females ("Whitey" from last year and the others may be returning females+ a male.
Several house sparrows

January results

January Results

I had 69 species at the end of January in Gloucestershire out of a 200 which I would like to get at the end of the year. There were three new birds for me and a possible fourth. Not too good for the garden as mostly rain or wind with early, dark mornings it's hard to spot that many interesting bird species. Also, overall I had 75/76 birds for my year list which impressively is about half of my overall list last year.

Hopefully I will see some nice birds in Gloucestershire with a hen harrier and two great grey shrikes already here. Also, Cotswold water parks in Glos is doing good with goosander, red crested pochard, Siberian chiffchaff as well as a pair of ruddy shelducks. The Forest of Dean has a few hawfinches, the two barred crossbills, crossbills, lesser redpoll, sisken as well as dipper, coal tit and a few others like goshawk which are needed for my Glos List.

Saturday, 1 February 2014

Slimbridge WWT 1/2/14 sightings- Festival of Birds with GREAT birdwatching

Festival of Birds was today and tomorrow so went to see what was happening. Also, I went primarily for the birds as there were a few surprises which have been here for some time but always secretive.

Holden Tower- The birdwatchers "must go" hide

Little stint

Greenland white fronted goose (Darker individual with orange beak)

Thousands of lapwing
Thousands of golden plover
Lots of dunlin
12 Shelducks
Greylag geese
200+ European white fronted geese
Meadow pipit
1 GREENLAND WHITE FRONTED GOOSE- Feeding and showing well with the European ones. Rare in Gloucestershire although Slimbridge WWT always gets a rare goose or two literally every winter. This year a Brent and the Greenland whitefront, last year the three Tundra bean geese. They sometimes get Pink footed geese. They've also had a Black Brant and Red breasted geese. I remember them having seven Snow geese of unknown origin and used to have annual Lesser white-fronted geese but none after 2002.
1 BRENT GOOSE- the injured adult which has been around since last July/August but I've not seen him before.
1 LITTLE STINT- Slimbridge WWT is one of the only places a small flock of little stints winter in Britain and in 2008 a Temminck's stint was seen with them too.

South Lake

Lesser black backed x Herring gull hybrid (Dark individual on land)

2 oystercatchers- first of the year
1 lesser black backed x herring gull hybrid
A few lapwing
15 cormorants
Lots of "heavy billed" gulls- herring gulls mostly
Common and black headed en masse.

Rushy

Pintail pair

2 Bewick swans
1 cormorant
20+ pochard
30+ pintail
30+ tufted ducks
Mute swans

Tack Piece

2 GCP Common cranes prforming their courtship
Greylag geese
40+ bewicks
Pintail
Pochard
Tufted ducks
30+ black tailed godwits
The lapwing
The golden plover
Several redshank
The European white fronted geese.

Car park

50+ lapwing flew over
Peregrine over
2 wader sp which looked like Snipe
A small flock of unidentified finches

Sunday, 19 January 2014

Recent sightings

Berkeley park- Scott law 19/1/14

25+ MAGPIES- very big flock calling and congregating in just one tree
Chaffinches
2 grey wagtails
1 reed bunting male
2 herring gulls
7 meadow pipits
30+ redwing
Adult male blackbird
Wren
21/25 magpies

Sharpness docks

1 cormorant
2 mute swans
1 BLACK REDSTART- my first ever and it's a female which has been around for about a week.
Black redstart female

Flooded fields

6 grey herons

Recent pic from Slimbridge WWT on the 11/1/14

Bewick swans

Thursday, 2 January 2014

Slimbridge WWT 2/1/14 sightings

Awful weather on the 1st so my year list was only about 10!

I went to Slimbridge and was very pleased to have seen a few Rarities.

Rushy

Pintail
Black headed gulls
4 AVOCETS- only arrived this morning and after being found once from the Zeiss, then disappearing it was great to see them together on the Rushy.

Tack Piece

1000+ lapwing
1000+ golden plover
1000+ dunlin
100+ Canada geese
100+ feral banacle geese
Lots of teal
Lots of wigeon
Shovelers
Greylag geese
Pintail
50+ Bewick swans
1 GREEN WINGED TEAL- Adult male. I first sighted this bird, with other birdwatchers, at Newpassage down in South Gloucestershire and it was very distant. That was my first ever sighting. Now a few days ago the bird had gone from New Passage and had arrived at Slimbridge WWT and was still pretty distant with the other ducks.
40+ white fronted geese
20+ curlew
1 ruff reported but didn't see it.

Willow hide

Normal "Garden" birds like great tit, blue tit, chaffinch, dunnock, wren and Moorhens.

Duck Decoy area

My earliest ever CHIFFCHAFF

December Sightings

Happy New Year to everyone

December was quite a good month for birds from the garden, although the weather was sometimes horrible, we had a total of 27 species.