Friday, 23 April 2010

A bit of luck

Northern Wheatear, Coombe Abbey - image by kind permission of Mr Andrew Hale

Local incident

Female Common Whitethroat - Brandon Marsh

Female Common Whitethroat


Common Whitethroat

Thursday 22nd April 2010


Awoke to a beautiful morning except that it was snowing! Bits of black were falling from the sky. Nuneaton, not to be outdone by Iceland had its own cloud of Ash generated by a fire at an engineering works not far away. Anyway birding must continue and first port of call was Caldecote meadows not too far away but beyond the fallout zone. After a short walk to the river there were 3 Wheatears perched up on fence posts and another one on the ground and a pair of yellow wagtails in the sheep field, an excellent start to the day. News of a Whinchat near Coombe Abbey had me umming and arring. It could could a wasted journey as the trip for the Ring Ouzel in the same place had been. Still if you are going for a County year list you've got to go for it. I arrived and immediately met the same guy who found the Ring Ouzel. He had a photo of the Whinchat but said it hadnt been seen since early morning. I was joined by Andy Hale and Dennis Woodward. We spent the next hour searching for the Whinchat but with no success. We did find a male Wheatear and a couple of female Common Whitethroats(138) and then incredibly a female Ring Ouzel (139) flew just in front of us. We watched in amazement as the bird flew over a Rape field and disappeared out of view.

I moved on to Brandon Marsh for no other reason than it was nearby.

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