Monday 25 October 2010

October Update I

Hello - its the end of october, and i'm only just writing up my notes of whats gone on this month - terrible. I went to bristol at the start of the month, went to cheddar briefly and managed to see a few meadow pipits and skylarks, but not much else. On coming back i had a trip to attenborough, i've decided to start visiting the delta hide more often now, as i've missed out on some great birds and photographic oppurtunities down there over the summer apparently.

We were sat watching the reedbed, with Cetti's warblers singing and reed buntings dipping in and out, when a large bird flew over the hide and into the trees behind the reedbed. Amazingly it was a tawny owl, being very bulky and too large for a sparrowhawk, which it was orginally thought to be. Good sighting. While waiting to see if it would return a Greater Spotted woodpecker was being very vocal in the trees, showing briefly.

Otherwise there were the usual birds about, including 3 snipe (these are a regular sighting nowadays!), a yellow legged gull on the pond near the visitors centre, and i also did my usual wildfowl count - 41 Gadwall, 40 Shoveler, 50 Teal, 61 Wigeon and 8 Common Pochard.

On the 10th of october i was at my parents house and as it was a nice day we decided (i decided!) to go to the RSPB reserve, Frampton Marsh. I'd read about this site and it has been consistently attracting excellent birds, many of which i'd not have the chance to see in Notts. It was very windy on the reserve which meant that there wasn't a lot of birds out in the open, but on walking round the marsh, i saw plenty of species.

We started at the visitor centre, where they have several scopes lined up, but the in-progress reedbed and freshwater pool habitat was a little quiet, with only a few mallards and other wildfowl about, although i did see what i'd anticipated seeing on the reserve, a few dark bellied (siberian) Brent Geese.

We wandered up to the wash, where a large embankment surrounds the reserve with the freshwater habitats on the left and on the right a huge landscape of saltmarsh and big skies. A small number of Redhank were heard flying over the saltmarshes but little else could be seen, as the sun was directly over the marsh.

Walking back to the reserve, more Redshank flew over calling loudly, and as the saltmarsh retreated into coastal grassland, more birds were seen. Around 40 Little egret were seen in the distance, but the real spectacle was the huge flock of Brent Geese, feeding in the grass, moving slowly to the east. There must have been over 1500 birds, and peppered inbetween, in the small pools around about were several small groups of Redshank. It was nice to see these waders, as they only occur very rarely in notts, but here they were abundant.

We went down to the series of hides around the freshwater marsh and reedbed, and there was a huge variety of birds around here. A few brent geese flew overhead, and there were groups of lapwings and lots of Teal and Shoveler from the first hide. Wandering over to the other hides, a greater diversity was seen, there were a lot of Black-tailed Godwits around feeding in the shallow water, as well as lots of wildfowl, redshank, shelduck, more egrets and lapwings.

On the ground just in front of the hide were a few cryptically plumaged birds - very hard to spot, my mum had to point them out to me. A few meadow pipits were there, enjoying a mud-bath, but there was another bird which was causing some id problems, not just with us but with other birders too. I thought it was a bunting of some sort, and when i got home the nearest i got was a juvenile Lapland Bunting. Unfortunately my camera had run out of battery so i couldnt get a 100% positive id, more like 99%!!! Elsewhere there were a number of linnets and goldfinches feeding on seedheads by the paths.

On the way back i had one last look in the visitor centre, where i managed to get a reasonably good look at a reasonably lazy duck - a sleeping Pintail.

Not a bad day then - 35 species, 2 lifers (brent, pintail), 1 possible lifer (lapland) and plenty of other good birds, definately a reserve i'll return too, hopefully with a fully charged camera next time!!!

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