52 species recorded this afternoon
This was the first day with my second group tour of the 'Levels'. We all arrived at various times during the morning but met up as a group at 12 noon for our first birding excursion.
It was dull, misty, raining and cold - what did you expect....it is winter!!! However we could see lighter patches of grey in the sky and by 2pm it had stopped raining and blue sky appeared.
We drove straight to Greylake RSPB Reserve because we intended to carry on into Taunton to try to see a flock of Waxwings which had been reported there, more on that later.
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| Brambling hidden in the scrub with a Chaffinch |
At Greylake RSPB reserve we spent a little time in the car park watching the feeders where we saw Reed Bunting, Blue Tit, Robin, Dunnock, Great Tit and Chaffinch. From the hide we watch Common Snipe (about 20 birds), Teal, several hundred of them, Pintail, Wigeon, Shoveler, Lapwing, Little Egret and a couple of Common Buzzards. On the way back to the car park we stopped to look into some willow bushes and at the base of them we found a small flock of finches feeding on seed. There were several Chaffinches and 4 Brambling and 1 Reed Bunting, we all got good views of the Brambling before we moved on. Back at the car park we bumped into a Common Chiffchaff which was fly catching from the bushes.
Next we drove 12 miles into the suburbs of Taunton to look for the Waxwings, we found them straight away, about 10 were present and gave us prolonged views. When they eventually flew off we realised that there were at least 19 of them. During this time we also saw: Redwing, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Bullfinch, Goldfinch and Robin.
Back on the 'Levels' we turned onto the road to staith to look for the 'introduced' Common Cranes without success, there is too much water around and many fields are flooded.
So we finished up at Ham Wall where we took a leisurely walk from the car park to the viewing platforms which overlook the vast reed beds and pools. We saw many of the common ducks and added Canada Goose, Siskin, Goldcrest (3), Marsh Harrier, Great Crested Grebe and Great White Egret to our list.
The starling roost was terrific, the sky had cleared and the wind had dropped, the reeds were perfectly still. The birds began to arrive but much to our dismay they started to gather to the far left of us, near the first viewing platform. So after a while we set off back towards the first platform and just before we got the Starlings changed their minds and set off back to the where we had come from. So we didn't get to see any 'murmurations' really. One plus point was a couple of brief viewings of Great Bittern. We now know where both the Starlings and the Bittern are roosting so we planned to visit in the morning to see
them leave.
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| Some of the group on the second viewing platform at Ham Wall |
ADDITIONS TO THE NEW YEAR LIST
112. Waxwing
113. Great Bittern
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