Giving in to Bluethroat temptation, local Worcester birding weeks round up and 7 Black-necked Grebes do seem to make a summer!

           

Red-spotted Blue Throat

There has been a Bluethroat at a place called Swineham on the Dorset coast for over a month. It has become increasingly confiding as, rightly or wrongly, people have been putting out food for it. This is a scarce vagrant from mainland Europe that I get to see somewhere in the UK most years. Many of my  birding friends have visited and had fantastic views and Facebook has had many superb photos posted of this most attractive male specimen. 

 

I’ve done quite well in avoiding the temptation, it is after a three hour drive from home, and have stuck with local birding for the past month. I supposed that it was always going to happen if the bird stayed long enough and on Monday this week, with another glorious sunny warm spring day in the offing, I finally gave into temptation and left home southbound at 6am. 

 

The early Monday morning traffic was pretty bad leaving me to rue not getting up and leaving earlier. The most exciting thing that happened on the way down was when a car behind me failed to notice that I had stopped behind a car turning  right and had to swerve around me ending parallel to me on the wrong side of the road! My new Volvo has all sorts of clever accident avoidance gismos and the first I knew about the approaching  car was when the accident  avoidance alarm screeched at me and my seat belt tightened and pulled me hard back into the seat with a jolt. Gone are the halcyon childhood days of my late fathers old Ford Zephyr which was rusted out such that you could see the road through the floor and in which a number of occasions one of the wheels came undone and rolled past us. We knew the meaning of the excitement of the Sunday afternoon drive in those long gone days!

 

After a couple of stops I arrived just before 10 am parked and made my way to the birds location using the excellent instructions provided by my pal Nick. I hoped that going so late for it and it being Monday would mean that there were not too many people watching it in the narrow lane it had taken to. In fact there was just one other chap sitting on the ground taking photos who I recognised from previous trips. He told me that the Bluethroat had been showing down to  a few feet but had just retired to the hedge. We whiled the time away chatting, as you do, about general birding matters exchanging stories of our foreign trips. The Bluethroat soon reappeared some way up the path and slowly made its way to us until it was perhaps 10 ft away before retiring back to the hedge. It did this several times while I was there and, giving some of my photographic birding experiences, particularly with rare leaf warblers, it almost felt as though this daintily dressed chap was a professional model slowly walking up and down the catwalk while displaying this year’s finest designer fashions.

 

 

The Bluethroat is a member of the old world Flycatcher family and as such is a migratory insect eating bird fairly common across mainland Europe in spring and summer. The males have a striking throat pattern of red, black, and yes you’ve guessed it you old clever clogs, blue. They come in two main forms. Northern European birds mainly have a  Red throat spot while those in the rest of Europe right across to Turkey either have a white spot or none at all. While researching this post I learnt that there are actually eleven recognised subspecies mainly differentiated by throat pattern which seems a bit excessive to me!

 

As a footnote, the Bluethroat disappeared overnight so my timing was either excellent or very poor depending on your opinion!

 

After two hours and much too many photos in the bag, I walked along the coast and found a pleasant spot for my picnic lunch. A little further along a pair of Garganey detained me for a little while but they were a long way off and only just recognisable through my bins.

 

My plan for the afternoon was to retire to the nearby RSPB reserve at Arne to chill out with some gentle low pressure birding. I ended up spending most of my afternoon stay on a bench on Coombe Heath watching Dartford Warblers in the company of a German lady wildlife photographer. 

 

Now, I’ve often been accused of being birding obsessed by family and friends but my obsession seemed to pale into insignificance compared to my new companion for the afternoon. She was retired and had moved close to the polish border where there were “less people and more wildlife”. She was now spending most of her time traveling around Europe in her car photographing birds and showed me some amazing images of, amongst many other species, Stella’s Eider. Now here’s the hard core bit, she had converted her car with a mattress on the back seat, and, believe it or not, some form of loo, and was essentially living in her car! She had been in the Uk for a couple of days and was planning to spend 5 weeks living like this while birding.  I humbly bow to this level of birding dedication!

Dartford Warbler

Locally, the Nightingales are back on territory, an annual event I always greet with a mixture of relief and elevation. Relief because they are one of so many once common birds that are really struggling. My local site is great for the dense scrubby vegetation that they love but makes good views few and far between. On this evening visit I was treated to lots of song, some glimpses in the brambles and a couple of flybys over the path.

 

The local Lesser and Common Whitethroats are back with the latter seeming more numerous than ever with their scratchy punk like song ubiquitous in the hedgerows and scrub.

Common Whitethroat

Another dawn visit to the wonderful Wyre forest gave me my first proper views of Redstart; they were heard only on previous visits. The Pied Flycatchers were as busy as ever around their favourite nest boxes but I had no Wood Warbler sightings, just a few possible snatches of song. They don’t seem to be back in their favoured valley this year. They were also absent from this spot in 2024 but returned last year. On the way out I was chatting to another birder who have seen a male and female in a different location which I will try on my next visit. The Cuckoos are also back in the forest but were heard only on my visit.

Not yet another Pied Flycatcher pic I hear you say!

I took the opportunity after visiting my daughter and family in Sale last week to go and see the Black-necked Grebes at Pennington Flash. Rather incredibly for what still is a comparatively scarce bird, there were 7 present mostly in full summer plumage.  They have bred further south before at Frampton Marshes RSPB so I would guess there is every chance they will stay and breed at Pennington Flash.

 

A somewhat distant pic of 2 of the 7 Black-necked Grebes

So, as is traditional, here's one I took earlier!

I’ve also  made a quick evening visit to Clifton Pits to see a Wood Sandpiper where there were also good numbers of Yellow Wagtails. I was standing on the footpath above the small pool watching the Sandpiper with another group of birders when a horse lady appeared on a quad bike and drove around the lake tooting her horn loudly, hence flushing everything. I can only imagine she did this to annoy us! Later as I was watching the Sandpiper on the main lake she reappeared and told me to return to the footpath. Fair enough I suppose but she then took great delight in telling me that fishermen were coming soon and she made it very clear that she hoped they would scare off the birds and hence the birders. I started to argue with her but then realised I was only winding myself up and left her. The other birders had also had a similar encounter but, checking the map, this group were actually on or very close to the footpath. I often wonder what drives people who continually seek this type of confrontation. Surely their lives must be poorer for it?

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