Local(ish) spring birding

  

Hoopoe, Lapal

Well local is a relative concept you know, after all the nearest stars are in our local universe! I’ve been out and about quite a lot in the past few weeks and the absence of any new twitchable megas has meant mainly local building. I’ve been back to the Wyre Forest and Grimley twice, been to Upton Warren once, seen a Hoopoe in Lapal and visited Middleton Lakes RSPB. I’ve also been out on my local patch recording the arrival of common migrants. 

 

The highlight on my local Pirton patch was my first every Lesser Whitethroat, the scarcer cousin of our Common Whitethroat. I used to see them every year at Otmoor RSPB when I lived in Oxfordshire but have struggled to connect with them locally. I found it in a patch of scrub and identified it on song. I then spent an hour or so trying to see it properly with some success as per the picture below. Like most warblers, it is insectivorous  and is hence strongly migratory spending the winter months in Africa, Arabia and India. It is a comparatively small species of sylvia warbler with a grey back, whitish underparts, a grey head with a darker "bandit mask" through the eyes and a white throat. The Lesser Whitethroat's song is a fast and rattling sequence of tet or che calls and is quite different from the Common Whitethroat's scolding song.

   

Lesser Whitethroat, Pirton

 

Common Whitethroat, Pirton

Talking of which what I assume is last years returning male Common Whitethroat is back on territory in a patch of scrub just down the lane from our house. I’ve been checking every day to see if my friend was back and he finally appeared on the 18^th of April. I first heard his scolding song and then he flew to the top of his favourite bush and gave me a good telling off! He was sorely missed during the short gloomy winter days. The Common Whitethroat, as the name suggest, is a common summer migrant again belonging to the sylvia genus. 

 

I’ve done two long walks a week or so apart in the Wyre Forest and the most notable difference was the arrival on mass of Willow Warblers which were pretty much absent on my first walk but were if full song on my second. I spent some time watching both the Pied Flycatchers and the Dippers. Dippers nest early and usually have multiple broods. On the first visit they were in constant motion whizzing up and down the stream, presumably catching food for their young.  On the second visit the activity was quite different with the individual pictured here spending a lot of time dozing on the rocks in the stream. I wonder if the first brood had fledged and he was a tired parent taking a well deserved rest before the hard work of a second brood. For some reason I find in hard to connect with Redstarts at Wyre compared to the New Forest or the central Welsh woodlands . I heard a male singing in more or less the same spot as I heard one last year but, again, like last year I could not lay eyes on him.

Dipper, Wyre Forest

Pied Flycatcher, Wyre Forest

Over the past few weeks there has been quite an invasion on Hoopoes into the country mainly focused on the south coast. A rather incredible one hundred were reported on one day at the peak of the influx. So this week I thought it was high time that I got into the Hoopoe action and visited Lapal on the outskirts of south Birmingham where an individual had been regularly feeding in a well manured horse paddock. On the way I popped into Upton Warren hoping to see one of another major influx of Artic Terns passing through on their way to their northerly breeding grounds. A couple flew over Grimley while I was there and I thought they might go over Upton Warren but I did not see any. At Lapal a friendly lady saw me with my kit looking quizzically at the RBA map on my phone. Luckily, the bird was in her paddocks and she  took pity on me and gave me simple directions to it. It was out of sight in some trees when I arrived but it soon popped down on to the horse paddocks and started to probe the soft soil with its long beak for goodies. Seeing it took me back to our wonderful vacation in Italy last year when I would wake up to the sound of Hoopoes calling in the orchard garden of our villa. With so many Hoopoes in the UK this spring, there must be a good chance that they will breed again here as they did a couple of years ago. After 15 minutes or so the Hoopoe became alert, looked up at the sky and flew back into the trees to escape some unknown threat. This was my cue to move onto Middleton Lakes RSPB for the afternoon.

Avocet Upton Warren

 

The much underrated Dunnock, Upton Warren

Hoopoe, Lapal

This is a fairly large reserve of woodland and  disused gravel pits accessed on a road that passes by Aston Villa’s rather plush looking training ground. My target bird here was a Garganey which had been reported at mid-day from the outlook hide at the far end of the reserve. It is some time since I visited this very attractive reserve,  when I had good views of a rare singing Blyth’s Reed Warbler, and I had forgotten how long it takes to get to the outlook hide some 40 minutes from the car park. The Garganey never showed but I still had a lovely afternoon at the reserve with my first Hobby, Little Ringed Plover, and Greenshank of the year. I also had a bonus fly over of two Artic Terns which made up for not seeing them earlier.

Little Ringed Plover, Middleton RSPB

All in all I’ve had a very stress free and thoroughly enjoyable couple of weeks spring birding.

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