Fisrt morning of 2010 by Mason Phillips
Some of Warwickshire’s finest gathered by the owl field, Southam Road this morning despite the -5c wind chill to get the year started with a Barn Owl and though it did not perform for very long – it’s on our year list. The day turned into a social event as we moved on to Draycote Water where we split up with some of us walking out towards rainbow corner and the others (joined by those who had the sense to stay in bed a little longer) to farborough spit so we had the reservoir just about covered. Great-northern Diver, female Common Scoter, male Smew, Grey Wagtail, 6 Goosander and 10 Meadow Pipit were among the more common species seen while a male Pintail was a new arrival.
Ten of us then chose to sample the grapefruit at a nearby Little Chef seeing 2 Buzzard and 7 Golden Plover on the way before checking out Rookery Hall Farm, Lawford Heath. Here we enjoyed searching among the finches and sparrows to find at least 4 Corn Bunting and 6 Yellowhammer but unable to confirm the possible Tree Sparrow while other highlight included a distant Raven, 60 Golden Plover, and Colin’s Green Sandpiper (all I managed was its bum as it shot past)
We were down to five by the time we entered Brandon Marsh and the place was heaving so we just about managed to squeeze in to the far right hand side of east marsh hide just after a Bittern had walked across the channel. Now yours truly came in to his own and managed to relocate it almost hidden on the edge of the reed bed and with Mark setting up his scope a few others also managed to get on to it. The reserve is still frozen but in the end we managed a Snipe, Water Rail, Kingfisher, Buzzard, 2 Jay, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 6 Lesser Redpoll and 4 Siskin.
Bittern by Steve valentine published just to show the difficulty we had in seeing it.
Richard
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