The Standlake Birder

This is my first spring in our new home so I’m still finding my birding feet in and around Worcestershire. In contrast it had become very comfortable for me birding in and around my Oxfordshire home. If, for example, you asked me at this time of year where the nearest Garden Warbler was from my Standlake home I would take you on the short walk to Standlake Common and be very confident of showing you one but I don’t yet have a scooby do if and where they are in Pirton! So I’m still finding out exciting new things about birding locally from Pirton aided by a lot of friendly Worcestershire birders.   The cold spring seems to have delayed migration by around 2 weeks with many migrants still setting up territories in the local hedgerows. In the past week I have found several new in Common Whitethroat establishing territories with males hammering out their brief scratchy song. The Collared Doves from the nest in our barn have fledged and the very confiding juveniles are out and about on the

Whiskered Tern Well, that’s my entry for the “worst pun in a blog title” award sorted!    So, it turns out that the Whiskered Tern I dipped a week or so ago at Abbotsbury had only relocated a little east and inland to Longham lakes near Bournemouth. With loads of other commitments this week post our Cornwall holiday the first day I could realistically go to try and see it again was Friday. Would it stay for another 5 days or would I miss out on seeing it again?   The gods of birding were to shine kindly on me this time!   With no real need to get up at the crack of dawn, I set off from home at 7 am and arrived in Longham around 09:30. I found some on road parking near the lake, the onsite parking is for permit holders only, and walked the short distance to the lake. There are two adjacent disused gravel pit lakes one of which is used for fishing the other managed for wildlife. There is a well-made gravel path for walkers around the lakes with signs informing dog walkers to keep the

  Tawny Pipit Now there’s a list of things in a title I can guaranteed you won’t find very often!   Two weeks ago on Wednesday I ventured out on a somewhat mad day trip to Cornwall in an attempt to see, and hence UK tick, an Eastern Sub-Alpine Warbler. Why mad? Well two reasons really. Firstly, it had been on a site close to Lands End for several days, started off showing quite well but had become more elusive, a habit I have previously noted in birds that were about to disappear! Secondly, we were going to St Just near Lands End for a holiday 48 hours later. My rational for going, or perhaps I should say my irrational distorted sense of reality, was that the bird would definitely not stay another 48 hours and  even if it did spending a whole holiday day staring at a bush rather than with my wife and two dogs would have been a very selfish act landing me in very hot water!   I was up at silly o’clock and on site near Lands End some 4 hours later. On arrival I spied several birders wand