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Showing posts from January, 2013

Bittern and Water Pipit and a Surprise

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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

New Year Birding

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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)