Chasing an elusive Richard’s Pipit in Gloucestershire, another visit to the Forest of Dean and further thoughts on Quantum weirdness
Jay On Wednesday I made the short trip to try and see a Richard’s Pipit at Awre in Gloucester. I’ve seen a couple of Richard’s Pipits over the years but was tempted to have a go for this one as it was only 20 or so miles from home. Awre is also very close to the Forest of Dean so I planned a morning at Awre followed by an afternoon in the forest. If truth be told, Richard’s Pipit is not the most colourful or exciting bird in the world being very much the archetypal “little brown Jobby”, a description which also covers most other Pipits. It is a scarce rather than rare vagrant to the UK with a small number recorded in a typical year. It breeds in open grasslands in the East Palearctic and is a long-distance migrant moving to winter in the open lowlands of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It was a long muddy slog down from Awre to the fortified riverbank of the Severn where the bird had been regularly reported in...