Paul's Birding Diary

Saturday 12th January 2013 The Bittern on the WWT Top New Piece reed-bed, giving a brief full-body view At the second attempt this year the Bittern finally showed for me at WWT Slimbridge. Thankfully Mark and I didn't have to wait long, and it even came out into the open for a short time. Around 10 Gadwall on South Lake were a another year tick. A more typical view this morning, but we could see it for most of the time we were in Zeiss Hide - around an hour Head-on view Later the Water Pipit was at Berkeley Pill, and a Stonechat was a just south of the mouth of the pill. We found a Jack Snipe too, which was very welcome after not seeing on at all in 2012. Other birds here included seven Common Snipe , c20 Meadow Pipits , six Skylarks , a Redshank , two Ravens and a Great Black-backed Gull on the river. Andy had found an apparently injured Grey Partridge in a tree by the canal back at Quedgeley earlier, near Rea Bridge car park. We went to check it out on the...

Tuesday 1st January 2013 One of three Lesser Redpolls visiting the garden today The first bird of the New Year was a Robin singing near my house at 1:00am in the morning. Three Lesser Redpolls were in the garden today, where other visitors included a male Sparrowhawk . Later I year-ticked a range of common species on a walk around Moreton Valence, including Skylark , Yellowhammer and Stock Dove . A detour to Cheltenham after the walk added WAXWING to my 2013 list, with 22 still present at 3:00pm near Edward Wilson House on Princess Elizabeth Way. Some of the 22 Waxwings at Princess Elizabeth Way, Cheltenham, including a nice adult male (centre left)