So I decided to keep it local, there were a number of decent reports considering I live in Warwickshire, that night when the girls had gone to bed, I planned the next day whilst the best man and I tried a variety of home-made ales, not a great mix.... So the plan was:
1. Up at 07:00 and a trip to Bredon Hill for migrants - esp Ring Ouzel.
2. Morton Bagot next for the Green-winged Teal.
3. Up to Bittell Reservoir for Great Grey Shrike and Sand Martin.
4. Pop into Earlswood - since we were practically passing.
5. A quick visit to Brandon Marsh for Little Gull.
6. Finish of at Draycote Reservoir for Great Northern Diver and Long-tailed Duck.
Excellent, planning complete we then stayed up until 05:00 finishing the home-made ales and a number of retailed bottles - out the window goes the plan...
I still managed to get up at 08:30 and decided Bredon Hill was a no go as the dog walkers would be way ahead of me. I had breakfast with the girls whilst waiting for the best man to surface, which he duly did at 09:30. Shower and breakfast over and it was out the door on the road for around 10:30!
First stop was Morton Bagot, on arrival we met a few birders who were just leaving, they were kind enough to direct us to the pools as I'd never been here before, quite appalling really as it's only 11 miles from my front door. We were told there was a juvenile Peregrine present but were unable to locate it. We did however manage to locate the male Green-winged Teal on one of the pools with a number of Eurasian Teal, the pool was difficult to view from the other side of a field with some of the pool being out of sight in the dead ground.
On the larger pool we were fortunate to find 4 Green Sandpipers, a Little Ringed Plover and a Grey Heron, Gadwall pair and a few Lapwing.
With that success we headed back to the car stopping to laugh at the spring lambs hopping around. Next stop was the Hopwood plantation next to the Bittell Reservoirs.
We parked up in the layby as per the instructions on BirdGuides and proceeded to scan the plantations for the Great Grey Shrike. My best man works as an actor so finds just about everything fascinating in the guise of learning so I took the opportunity to teach him some scanning techniques as per training received in the army, i.e. don't focus on specific points, look for slight movement, differences in tone, shine, shadow of objects etc. He takes life experiences like this as tools for his work on the stage, didn't help us to locate the Shrike though. We spent about 15 minutes scanning and decided to head over to the reservoirs to see what else was about.
We parked in the layby on the corner of Lower Bittells and had a quick look at them. Apart from the Great Crested Grebe they were virtually devoid of any birdlife so we took a walk up to Upper Bittell. On the way up we found a female Bullfinch singing, I never realised they females sang too? Bullfinch's are my favourite bird which I don't get to see that often so it's always a treat, their song is very unique and quite funky too.
Bullfinch
Found my first singing Common Chiffchaff of the year today too although it was hard to pin down as it flitted about the vegetation. A number of Wren were in full song holding territory and a pair of Treecreeper flitting around together also in full song. On arrival at Upper Bittell we were greeted by around 40 Sand Martin which are my first for 2014, we didn't get chance to see if much else was about as the skies opened up as forcast so we made a dash back to the car.
Since it was pouring with rain I decided to skip Earlswood and head straight for Brandon Marsh, we were both hungry now and it wouldn't be fair to drag my best man around a lake in the rain, this is my idea of fun, not his. The plan was to get some lunch in the Brandon Marsh café and hope that the rain stopped to allow us to continue birding.
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