With so many people starting sentences or articles with
“so” I am determined that I will not fall into that reprehensible habit, and
therefore my first comment this week is to correct my blog of 12th
January, and launch straight into correcting the errors wrongly showing events
as dated … October! Don’t ask me why - just a senior moment I suppose in
anticipation of my birthday to-day.
My last blog was a good week with an additional 11
species on the year list, and if my birding was confined to locally it was
unlikely to be repeated. And it wasn’t.
Tuesday January 21st, and kicking off with my comfortable score of 72
to date, Chris and I liaised for a trip to Slimbridge, the idea being we would
be there for 10.30 and get in a good coverage of the site including lunch, by
sundown at c3.30. Wrong again.
Sitting in a 3-lane traffic queue 5 minutes down the A38
from home, my in-car satnav tells me that the A38 is closed between 2 junctions
east and west of Burton on Trent. .. and 45 minutes later we are passing
Willington Gravel Pits, wondering if the large number of parked cars are hoping
to see the reported Hen Harrier. Finally reaching Repton and knowing that all
the traffic going both ways are trying to by-pass Burton we change to Plan B,
we will go the relatively new RSPB reserve at Middleton Green, next to Bodymoor
Heath Aston Villas’ training ground.
Has to be the right decision, and we reach the RSPB car
park at 10.30, the time we should have been at Slimbridge. I’d been to Middleton before, but it was new
to Chris, so meaning that we would follow the prescribed somewhat
lengthy route around the large number of ponds.
We got a couple of useful tips from some fellow birders, and
located a lone Great White Egret standing proudly on his own in the middle of
one pond. That was followed by spotting synchronised swimming/dipping by a pair
of Pintails, which made our scanning worthwhile.
HOWEVER, in the course of trying to see the Pintails in a
telescope, without bothering with setting up the tripod, I rested the scope on
a couple of strong looking fence wires. And they were strong for a reason. They
were electric. Now that did come as a shock… in more ways than one! Chris was looking the other way and only turned
when she heard me yelp. No after effects you will be pleased to know.
As Tuesday was the only day of the week when the Middleton
café was not open, and I was getting desperate for a cup of Twining’s, we moved
on to Kingsbury Water park to see what we could find.
I managed to find a good jacket potato, and as Chris
waited for her curried courgette soup (honest!!) she spotted a pair of Jays by
the bird feeder, a species not only that she wanted to see in 2020, but dipped
on in 2019.
The light was quite poor at Kingsbury after lunch and after
a quick yomp round the site we headed back to Derby.
And the traffic saga continued. It transpired that Derby
had 3 very nasty vehicle and pedestrian issues during the day, and it was only
my knowledge of some of the suburbs that avoided us encountering the 3rd
such incident on the way home. You just can’t plan for these sorts of sad
events.
Mary and I were invited to a 60th birthday party in
Haverfordwest on Saturday 25th
January entailing a 250 mile each-way trip to Pembrokeshire.
We managed to get a short visit to the west coast of
Wales at Wooltack Point a headland which overlooks Skomer Island. Despite the
continuous rain we were rewarded with views of a pair of Chough on the clifftops, a bird I had not seen for
a couple of years, the last time on Anglesey. We could both see the deep red coloured
feet and beaks, and there was a bit of noisy chuntering going on between them.
We also had a brief look at The Gann Estuary, at nearby
Dale, and despite the low tide, we were rewarded by a large group of Great Black Back Gulls.
And finally, the QI for the week.
115 years ago today, the world’s largest
diamond was mined in Pretoria, The Cullinan…. 3,106 carats. Wow! Some glitz!
Happy Birding
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