April 4th 2009

The weather is due to change tonight giving me a chance to stop burning the candle at both ends as I was out mothing last night grabbing a few hours sleep before setting off for the pond in the rain. Warmest evening of the year resulting in over 300 moths trapped from 23 species and also reflected in my home trap with 16 moths of 5 species.
Turned out to be an excellent day with plenty of birds in the morning and majority of the afternoon becoming a social do as the Red-necked Grebe and the Green-winged Teal were attracting many local birders and photographers.
Arrived at 6:45am with very low cloud in time to see a Black-throated Diver circling reservoir 7:00am joined by one of the Great-northern Divers and they may have flown off north together as there was no trace of BTD later and 3 GNDs were present all day with the two off the valve tower very photogenic. While others watched the Green-winged Teal in toft shallows they were soon frustrated again by fishing boats coming in to the shallows, even going past the hide and eventually the GWT flew to the inlet where it was last seen at 1:20pm and had not been relocated when I left at 5:30pm despite a lot of searching by Dave Hall. Please report any boats in this area to Severn Trent. Photographic evidence even better.

"O look theres a bird hide lets fish there"

Personally the bird of the day had to be the re-appearance of the ringtail (me thinks it’s a female) Hen Harrier seen from the country park and after some frantic phone calls and constant monitoring managed to add it to JJ and Bob Ds draycote list as she quartered the fields before drifting back in to Grandborough valley. Later on it was reported from behind rainbow corner and other parts of the valley.
Also seen were Grey Plover over, 7 Teal, female Shoveler, female Goldeneye, 2 Willow Warbler, 2 Oystercatcher, 3 Fieldfare, Redwing, 6 Yellow Wagtail, 5 House Martin, 15 Swallow, 5 Sand Martin, 10 Gadwall, Sparrowhawk, 5 Buzzard and 2 Green Woodpecker
Birds missed were Ringed Plover, Little Ringed Plover, Redshank and female Pintail reported by others and a Heron sp by me that soared over rainbow mid-morning resembling a Purple but distance and bright sunlight put paid to any chance of it being confirmed. Bugger.


I said the photographers were around, what I forgot to say was they were also having fun. Great-northern Diver by Dave Hutton note the plumage change as spring approaches. Most mornings now see them very active in exercising the wing muscles with short flights.

Richard