Black-necked Grebe @ Colwick

After hearing about this on Tuesday evening, I decided that I'd had two late nights at work so I deserved a treat. So I headed over to Colwick before work (it's kind of on the way, but with a small detour!). I arrived there at 730am, in a very gloomy misty morning. And cold! Only about 5 degrees.

There were plenty of ducks to be found, a few Wigeon left over, plenty of Tufties, 5-6 Shoveler, 4 Gadwall, at least 30 Little Grebes which seemed like a high count for the site? A female and 2 male Red-crested Pochard brightened the morning a little, although one was a funny colour! A Green Woodpecker called intermittantly and got my heart jumping (I still haven't got one on my 2012 yearlist!) and also a Great Spotted was drumming closeby. Not many gulls were present, just 30ish Black headed and 3 Commons. I got chatting to a guy as I got my kit out of the car and we wandered round the lakes chatting about Notts birding in general. We covered every inch of shoreline but we couldn't find the Black-necked Grebe! I left him at the West Lake, and walked back to the car and bumped into another chap who said that the grebe had been around the island in the south-east corner. I double checked it but still couldn't find anything. It hasn't been reported on Birdguides today either, whether that's a sign of it's departure or not. The other mildly interesting species I found was this, and I certainly didn't know that it was on site!

Weather is looking good for the moths tomorrow and Friday so I might have a bit of Leps to report soon!

Every cloud...

Friday saw me jumping into our lorry at work for a jolly down to Oxfordshire to pick up some drill core. My first obvious thought was "Yes! Red Kite country". However, the excitement of spotting my first Kite for the year was quickly dampened around 1130am when the electrics on the dashboard blew and we had to towed back to Nottingham! The kites put on a good show to cheer me up though, two flying right overhead about 1300 whilst waiting for the recovery truck to turn up!

Friday evening and a quick wander round Elvaston Castle Park in the hope of hearing (and then finding) the Tawny Owl resulted in nothing but this toad.

No owls to be heard, but I did also see a weasel (or something similar). The evening got slightly better with some drinks at my bessie mates house before his inevitable slump into married life, and after getting through beer and chat he booted me out at 230am. The walk home leads me past the Ripley Greenway at the bottom of our road and to my excitement the Tawny's were calling! And even better I'd brought my bag with my torch inside with me as I'd gone from work to my friends and left my car there. Brilliant! What ensued must have looked a bit odd with me creeping slowly over the grassy fields, listening with head on one side, occasionally trying to imitate a drunken male Tawny and flashing the torch at the slightest movement. Eventually, one flew across my path, but I reckoned there was at least three calling. Well, I think it was three?

Sunday - A quick wander round Willington in the afternoon provided some interesting sightings. 17 Curlew were present on the main pond but flew off north about 1600 and a Dunlin was at number 4 platform. Good numbers of Goosander were present, along with Wigeon, Shoveler and Gadwall. At least 2 Cetti's lead me on a merry dance but eventually gave themselves up, and Reed Buntings were very evident, with at least 8 pairs zipping around platform four.

Birding Yearlist = 120

A Bumper find

6th March 2012 - The fact that Great Grey Shrike has been present on Beeley Moor for at least since before Christmas has been bugging me cos it's one of those places that I never know where to look, but I finally decided to go and find it today. The locality has also got Bramblings (we went to find those before Xmas too!) so hopefully I could get a BOGOF deal.
A quick dash over to Beeley after picking the nipper up from school found us on site at Wragg's Quarry for 1615. A guy was coming off the moor as we arrived and told us that he'd just had the shrike down near Bumper Castle. We followed them down to where they thought it had been and parked up. After a short scan round the shrike gave itself up by flying to a hawthorn and showing really well!

The Brambling were also found by my new birding friend and after satisfying myself with shrike-views I moved further up the hill to view the birches which held a good flock of at least 12 Brambling (this is probably an under-estimation!), plus Chaffinch and Linnet. Not bad for 45 minutes twitching before tea and many thanks to the birders that helped secure the sightings.

2012 Yearlist - 117

Two Smews for me!

5th March 2012 -
The Smew that have returned to Holme Pierrepont for at least the last three winters proved true to their word again this year. This time being found mostly on Blott's Pit, I popped down during my lunch hour to try and find them. As I dropped off the road and onto the footpath over the stream I disturbed a Great Spotted Woodpecker and some tits and as I rounded the corner to view the lake the first birds I scanned past were the Smew. A male looking resplendant in the spring sunshine, and his female no less attractive. Always a stunning duck to watch and fortunately I managed to get some video through the scope too.
Firstly from a distance...

And I managed to creep around the bank and eventually grab the male having a good preen through the reeds...

Also present were several Goldeneye and Shoveler and a nice raft of 50+ Wigeon. Green Woodpecker was heard (I still need it for the year list).

This brings me to 115 for the year.

Photos and videos from Attenborough 26th Feb

Finally had chance to download my phone to get the pics and videos from last weekend. Hopefully you find them interesting enough to have waited for them!?

Firstly this lovely male Bullfinch stayed still long enough for me to get some footage through the scope. It was in company with 2 females.

On Tween Pond the Yellow-legged Gull put on a good show!

The Bittern showed for us briefly as we approached but quickly crept off back into the reeds. This was the best I could do!



It seemed so perfect...

28th February was one of those days that just seemed like the right conditions to put out the trap. It was cloudy and humid all day, the temperature got up to 13C and stayed at around 11C all night, only very slight breeze fro mthe SW. So why didn't more come to my trap??
Three moths were caught, well two were caught and one was sat on the shed door waiting for me in the morning. All three were new for the year, which is good. This puts me on 4 x Macros and 4 x Micros.

The first to the trap was Endrosis sarcitrella. Common, yes. But it was my first for the year, so here it is.

Next to arrive (but I had to wait a further 3 hours!) was this nice Amblyptilia acanthadactyla. I got several of these last year but they're always interesting to see!

Finally, as I was packing the trap away in the shed, I spotted this Emmelina monodactyla sitting waiting for me to photograph it on the door.

Slowly, we are getting there!

Attenborough pulls a few in

26th Feb - A Sunday afternoon in the glorious sunshine over the weekend couldn't be resisted, so we set sail for Attenborough Nature Reserve. I love a good walk round the pits and woods at this great reserve, there's always something to see and it provides plenty of entertainment for kids too.
We walked from the Barton Lane car park up to the church at Attenborough village and was hoping to get through to the woods at the top to search for the Lesser Peckers, but when we got to the old car park we were blocked by the new flood defence system that they're installing. Instead we cut across to the river and back round to the centre. The birds were out in good force with 46 species in total. A stunning number of Goosanders were present (in excess of 30) but unfortunately the Smew couldn't be found. A couple of Fieldfare were found feeding on Glebe Field. New for the year were Red-crested Pochard, Ruddy Duck and a cracking Bittern which was showing well on Dragonfly Pond (this is the one between Tween Pond and Wheatear Field and is viewable from the main path to the VC). I managed to get a poor mobile grab through the scope, watched it for a minute or so and then it silently crept backwards into the reeds.
Not very often my luck turns out that that! Usually it's "Oh it's just crept into the reeds, you should have been here a minute earlier"
I'll upload a couple of videos of a gorgeous male Bullfinch and a Song Thrush singing his heart out as the sun went down.