SWEDEN - 3rd November

 Strong winds again but there was more west in the wind than of late and as a result the now regular, morning seawatch was very productive with a fine array of species seen, highlighted by a near-summer plumaged Great-northern Diver – a Swedish tick!   

The totals were made up of 4 Shelduck, 45 Eiders, 5 Velvet Scoter, 42 Common Scoter, 6 Long-tailed Duck, 5 Goldeneye, 6 Red-breasted Mergansers, a Red-necked Grebe, a Purple Sandpiper, a Little Auk, 11 Guillemots, 165+ Razorbills, 272+ Kittiwakes, 7 Little Gulls, 6 Red-throated Divers and 145+ Gannets.   

Not much else was seen in the windy but sunny afternoon apart from a single Shorelark which flew south over the top of Gamla Varbergs and two female Scaup which appeared briefly in the bay in front of the house, late afternoon – a house tick!

Goosander

SWEDEN - 28th October

 After a wild, wet and windy night worthy of the Northern Isles the rain lingered through the first couple of hours of the morning but as soon as it stopped I went out, starting with a good walk around the point (and a little half-hearted seawatch) where birds included a single Velvet Scoter, 4 Razorbills, 2 Kittiwakes, a Red-throated Diver, a Sparrowhawk, a lost looking Great-spotted Woodpecker out on the point, 2 Bullfinches which flew north over the carpark, a few Greenfinches whizzing around and a flyover Yellowhammer.   

I then walked right round the coast, heading round the north side first and cutting across to the Marina and back along the south coast, birds of note comprised 15 Waxwings (a four and an eleven – a Swedish tick!), a redhead Smew hanging out with Mergansers off Sillhallsvik, a couple of Crossbills heard overhead, 8 Little Grebes by the Marina and 13 Reed Buntings.   

On the reserve later on there was a Brambling at the feeders and a Greenshank in front of the hide on the SW side.

Sparrowhawk

Waxwing

Goosander

27th January

An early walk along my usual stretch of the River Teme at Leintwardine in fine conditions produced 2 Dippers by the bridge, 2 Green Sandpipers, 10 Little Egrets, a female Goosander and a flock of 26 Siskin before birds at Venus Pool included the first returning Oystercatcher and two Shelduck, 40 Shoveler, 6 Gadwall, 6 Pochard, 12 Snipe, 85 Lapwing and a good selection of birds in the crop fields comprising 70+ Chaffinches, 60+ Yellowhammers and 25+ Reed Buntings.   There were disappointingly hardly any Gulls on any of the Telford lakes but there were 6 Goosander and a Kingfisher (an overdue year tick!) at Priorslee Flash and 9 Goosanders on Horsehay Pool before a much more profitable walk around Benthall Pools produced a single Jack Snipe with an epic 63 Snipe, 8 Teal and 4 Coots back on territory (absent from this site during autumn and early winter).

Dipper at dawn

Goosanders

Tufted Ducks

January 27th - 31st

All over the place for a few days without doing much real birding; a couple of days in Devon – generally awful weather produced a few things during a walk around Fremington Quay near Barnstaple including a single Spoonbill down the estuary with a handful of Little Egrets, a single adult Mediterranean Gull with the big numbers of other Gulls and 2 Greenshank up the creek.   The only other birds to mention were 20+ Hawfinches still at Whitcliff, Ludlow.

Hawfinches - Whitcliff

Song Thrush

Goosander - Priorslee Flash

and this weird black faced Canada Goose at Venus Pool

29th December

A little look at Venus Pool late morning produced the usual wildfowl including three Goosanders on the fishing lake along with good numbers of Yellowhammers, Reed Buntings and Chaffinches in the top field with 3 Corn Buntings and a female Brambling.   A walk along the river was then quiet with just a decent flock of 36 Goosanders on Leighton flats of note.

Corn Bunting

Yellowhammer

Goosander

26th December

Walked the long walk down to Ironbridge, along the river to Cressage and back along the lanes through Sheinton; it was unfortunately pretty unremarkable with a calling Peregrine somewhere around the cooling towers at Ironbridge Power Station and the 2 wintering Common Sandpipers on the river (one at Buildwas and the other in front of Leighton Hall).    Other totals included my first Red Kite for the river, 21 Goosanders, 2 Kingfishers, 4 Mandarin, 2 Teal and c100 Skylarks – c30 at Buildwas and c70 at Cressage Bridge.

Red Kite

Buzzards

Common Sandpiper

Goosander

GEDSER - 8th September

Still very settled but again the clear, calm, sunny and warm weather didn’t produce big numbers of birds in the nets as we managed 38 new birds but the total did include 5 Sparrowhawks (two males and three females – all juveniles).   The day’s highlight came early on with a 1st winter Golden Oriole seen perched on the top of one of the pines along the western edge of the garden warming up in the first rays of sunshine early morning.

                There was a similar pattern to the overhead migration with a few Siskin and Chaffinch flocks early on along with a few waders including Snipe, Dunlin and Ringed Plover but it soon dried up after the first couple of hours.

                A look at the point late afternoon (1645-1800) produced not too much with 20 Dunlin, 2 Ringed Plover, 18 Wigeon, 4 Teal, a single female Velvet Scoter, 3 Common Scoter, 19 Sandwich Terns and 3 Common Terns.

 

Golden Oriole

Sparrowhawk

Buzzard

Goosander