Patch Gold – A Whooper Swan

Since we moved to the darkest depths of Worcestershire three and a half years ago my local patch has been the area surrounding Pirton midway between Worcester and Malvern. Being a landlocked midlands county, expectation of anything rare of even scarce is low although there was a Pine Bunting in an adjacent village some 15 years ago.

I have a relaxed 3 mile walk around the village for which I normally just take my bins. I find it liberating not to be loaded down with scope and camera and my expectation of finding anything interesting is sufficiently low that this is not normally a problem. Ravens are quite common locally and nest nearby, I had one displaying over our paddocks earlier this week. Peregrines and Wheatears are occasional visitors and Tawny Owls roost in the small copse adjacent to our house. My Pirton list highlight is the 3 Garganey found (not by me I should say) on Pirton Pool a couple of years back. Within walking distance we are also most fortunate to have a small breeding population of Nightingales, a bird seriously in decline partially as their favourite under story habitat is being decimated by introduced Muntjacs.

Sometimes my loop of the village includes Pirton Pool, a medium sized presumably man-made lake on the Croome estate. I took in this loop today and immediately found what, for my little patch at least, is patch gold in the form of a beautiful Whooper Swan. I rushed home, picked up my camera and went back to take a few photos. The Whooper Swan is the scarcer winter visiting cousin of our mainly resident Mute Swan. They migrate to and breed on the northern Tundra in the spring. It is very readily distinguished from our Mute Swan by its bright yellow, as opposed to orange bill. The only possible confusion is with our other winter visitor, the Bewick Swan, but this has much less Yellow on its bill than the Whooper where it normally extends below the nostril.

From now on I will at least take my phone with me for its camera!

Footnote - My blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!

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