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All of a sudden spring arrived: Tuesday –  windy dull and showery with a maximum of 13 degrees; Wednesday – sunny with a pleasant breeze and 10 degrees warmer.

We had two really pleasant walks in South Gloucestershire either side of having a repair on the damaged bodywork of our car to which nobody owned up. The first along Siston Brook in the Willsbridge Valley local nature reserve and the second along the River Boyd in the Golden Valley local nature reserve.

We heard plenty of birds but only had glimpses of a dipper and a grey wagtail and a full view of a robin singing  the joys of spring.

Robin proclaiming his territory

Grey wagtail which was very shy of my camera

However, the spring plants and blossom were a shear delight and compensated somewhat for the invoice for the car repair.

There were lots of butterflies but the peacocks, orange tips and brimstones were too fast for my camera skills yet I did capture this large white.

Proper English bluebells

Primroses

Anemone nemorosa is an early-spring flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to Europe. Common names include wood anemone, windflower, thimbleweed, and smell fox, an allusion to the musky smell of the leaves. It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing 5–15 centimetres (2–6 in) tall.

Click below for gallery of today’s photos:

 

I must admit it was yesterday’s reports of a stone curlew and an ashy-head yellow wagtail that attracted me to Northwick Warth. When I arrived everyone I met had seen them yesterday and a ringed ouzel too only moments before; but not for me.

Nonetheless, I was quite happy to see a whimbrel, pied/white wagtails (I’m going to have to brush up on these), wheatears, distant views of a large flock of curlew and oystercatchers, plenty of shelduck and redshank and dunlin on the coastline.

Warm weather is promised but there wasn’t much sign of it on the Severn Estuary this morning, although I have known it a lot colder.

Shelduck

White or pied wagtail?

Whimbrel

Curlew and oystercatchers

Wheater

White or pied wagtail?

Redshank and dunlin

As I don’t get much opportunity to photograph garden birds I thought it was worth taking these of house sparrows.

 

Click below for gallery of photos from this morning:

We weren’t sure if we could do justice to RSPB Arne on an afternoon’s visit on our way home from our “non-birding” visit to the New Forest (if I’m honest we would have made it 3 birding trips in the three days if the weather hadn’t been so bad and we hadn’t opted instead for a visit to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu) but we thought the walk would be good for us anyway.

We were very lucky as the sun made a brief appearance and a spoonbill flew in briefly and flew out again with its little egret friend.

It was very strange indeed how the spoonbill flew in to Shipstal Beach, seemed to go and find the little egret in one of the pools, flew together to another pool, fed together for a while and then flew off together across the bay.

We made our way round to the hide and enjoyed watching a curlew having a wash and brush up.

There were oystercatchers, whimbrel, and Brent geese and shelduck on the spit where we had seen large flocks of spoonbills last year.

Along the (quite often very muddy) paths we saw chaffinch, dunnock , great tits, robins and blackbirds.

When the sun came out the gorse looked splendid.

 

We stopped off at Blashford Lakes in Hampshire on our way to a non-birding short break in the New Forest (that must be an oxymoron). We enjoyed the walk around the lakes on a very damp and murky afternoon even though the photographic opportunities were limited. The best came right at the beginning in the Tern Hide where we had close-up views of a little ringed plover, a redshank and a lapwing.

Little ringed plover

Redshank

Lapwing

We could also see a pair of great crested grebe, lots of shovelers, tufted ducks and indeed (to give credence to the name of the hide) a common tern.

Great crested grebe

Common tern

As we made our way round to the Goosander and Lapwing Hides we saw little grebe, garganey and wigeon but at some distance and in very poor light (i.e. excuse for poor photos).

Little grebe

Wigeon

Garganey in the middle 

Not sure about this little chap but probably a chiffchaff

Despite the conditions there were some signs of spring

 

The English are renowned for talking about the weather. I suppose the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish are more stoical about the weather they get but here in England we live in anticipation of something much better than the reality; and we are constantly disappointed and don’t stop talking about it.

Well for one reason or another I haven’t been able to get out for a week and I have found looking out of the window quite a miserable experience: we have had such a run of poor weather and there’s certainly not been any reason to enthuse about the joys of spring.

However, today we did get out and, although it didn’t rain (until the evening) it was the sort of day that everything looked black or grey and certainly not the sort of day to take photos.

Yet on our short walk along the coast south of Clevedon on the Bristol Channel I did take some photos. Not many to be truthful and nothing I could be proud of, but I did take some. I wasn’t going to publish them because they were so poor. However,  in the end I decided to as they serve as a reminder of the miserable pascal weather. I also kept hearing in my ear the Duke of Wellington’s quote of “publish and be damned” (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rear-window-when-wellington-said-publish-and-be-damned-the-field-marshal-and-the-scarlet-woman-1430412.html).

On the first part of our walk all I saw were shelduck: they were quite interesting to watch and hear as some of the males were being quite aggressive to each other.

Inland I caught sight of a kestrel which hovered and then perched some distance from me.

All along the coast we could hear skylarks which was the most positive aspect of the walk.

We could also see some flooded fields inland with little egrets, lapwings and (because a very friendly fellow birder pointed them out with his telescope) redshank too. A buzzard was then mobbed by a couple of crows.

Little egret

Redshank huddled together with one standing apart

Lapwing

Little egret in flight

Buzzard being mobbed by crows

Just before the end of our walk I could see a couple of curlew and some oystercatchers and then some people acting very strangely on the mudflats (they weren’t fishing or looking for cockles just searching for some sort of treasure).

Certainly better than sitting at home I suppose.

Curlew

Curlew and oystercatcher

Click below for gallery of photos from today:

 

 

We made the most of the first day of British Summer Time which was a sunny day but with a cold wind. We started at WWT Steart and had a really good 10 km walk around the reserve but we didn’t see an awful lot of birds. In fact all we saw was a reed bunting and a mute swan on the walk out to the furthest point and then some distant views of curlews, shelduck, shovelers, oystercatchers and some gulls.

Bath time for the mute swan

Distant view of curlew

We decided to go on to RSPB Greylake which was only 10 miles inland.

There we had a lot more success with great views of lots of wigeon, shoveler, teal, lapwing, reed bunting, blue and great tits, house sparrows, chaffinch, goldfinch, a kestrel, a grey heron and two overflying crane.

Wigeon orchestrating his mates

Wigeon

Teal

Reinforcements of wigeon – safety in numbers

Shoveler

Shoveler

Wigeon

Kestrel

Kestrel

I have to thank Angela Edwards and her husband for spotting the crane, which I was lucky to get a shot of, as I had already packed my camera in the boot of the car.

Common crane

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_crane

Some of the birds at the car park:

Female reed bunting

Goldfinch

Chaffinch

Blue tit

Male reed bunting

House sparrow

Blue tit

Blue tit

RSPB Greylake is such a lovely small reserve with good hides and viewing points. The display of birds feeding in the car park is worth the visit alone.

We called in at Aust Warth (Severn Estuary) on the way home to see if we could see the barn and short-eared owls but we were not lucky and all we saw were a crowd of twitchers waiting hopefully.

Click below for gallery of photos from today:

I only had an hour to spare and so I wandered across to Stoke Park. The cold wind had ceased and it was good to feel some warmth in the day even though it was still quite grey.

At first I only saw a few crows (one with a tasty meal) and some wood pigeon.

Then a kestrel flew by the trees surrounding Duchess Pond and it stayed long enough for me to make my way round and get close to it next to the pond.

A male stonechat made a brief appearance.

There weren’t many ducks on the pond just a pair of mallard and 4 moorhen.

On the way back there were lots of robins staking their territories noisily and a dunnock.

 

 

 

 

I arrived at Aust Warth in the sunshine but by the time I had taken my camera out of the car it had clouded over and stayed that way for the rest of the morning. I was hoping to have more sightings of the short-eared owl but it doesn’t work that way and all I saw was a distant kestrel. However, I did have an interesting chat with Dave Knowles who (with owl in his name and a personalised registration of  DK …OWL) filled the vacuum of no owls on the warth.

Kestrel

I moved on to Northwick Warth and found the tide was too far in for waders but spotted a few redshank, a dunlin and wigeon waiting in the pill for the tide to go out.

There were shelduck all over the warth but not really close enough for decent  photographs.

I walked out to the Pilning Wetlands with Don Smith and his son (who I had met here last year) who kindly pointed out the peculiar behaviour of the shovelers who were pairing up and circling around each other with their bills immersed in the water. I had never noticed this before.

 

Shovelers circling their mates

There wasn’t much else around – just some tufted ducks, a little egret, a grey heron, a little grebe and some lapwings trying to impress with their acrobatic flying.

Little grebe

Tufted ducks

Tufted duck about to dive.

Lapwings trying to impress

A flock of starling flew by.

On the way back I spotted a buzzard on a pole and only had time to take a photo without a tripod before it flew off. Fortunately I managed to spot it again in a nearby tree.

Buzzard

 

By the time I had got back to the estuary the tide had gone out enough for me to get good views of redshank, dunlin, a turnstone and lots of wigeon.

Redshank

Dunlin photobombing a redshank

Dunlin showing a lack of interest in my camera

Wigeon in flight

Redshank

Redshank

Wigeon posing

Turnstone breaking its camouflage by walking in front of a wigeon

Redshank and a dunlin

Shelduck

Before getting back in the car a robin, a wood pigeon, a blackbird and a pair of starling caught the limelight.

A very cold but very enjoyable morning.

Click below for gallery of photos from this morning:

 

Not many birds around this morning in Stoke Park but more people than usual enjoying winter sports in the snow.

There were 4 mallards and 4 moorhen on the lake; 2 meadow pipits flew over the frozen boggy area and also a cormorant flew over much higher up and then a couple of blue tits on the path home. It all looked very pretty though (especially the trees and the reeds) even though there was a strong wind which made it feel very. cold.

 

Click for a gallery of photos from this morning:

 

 

 

Another visit to Aust was well rewarded with good views of a short-eared owl and (just as we were leaving and camera packed away) a kestrel.

Quite out of the blue a stunning day with blue skies throughout and some warmth in the sun.

I spent a wonderful morning on the Severn Estuary meeting lots of interesting people and seeing lots of birds: I started at Aust Warth where I had great views of a short-eared owl and a kestrel; I then moved on to Northwick Warth where, for me, the bird of most interest was a golden plover.

On Pilning Wetlands I could make out Canada geese, mute swans, shovelers, tufted ducks, a little grebe, lapwings, a grey heron, a little egret and plenty I couldn’t make out.

I was about to leave, as it was getting a little fresh in the wind, when I realised the tide had come in enough to make the estuary quite interesting with shelduck, wigeon, dunlin, turnstone, redshank, and black-headed gulls.

Click below for gallery of photos from this morning:

On a trip to Midsomer Quilting in Chilcompton,  Somerset (the UK’s favourite quilting shop) we stopped off very briefly at Chew Valley Lakes but the only photos Oli (my young apprentice) and I managed were of tufted ducks and a shelduck at Herriott’s Bridge. There were also 4 shovelers but they were too far away to get a decent photo.

Male tufted duck (my photo)

Female tufted duck (Oli’s photo – for more see Oli’s page)

Shelduck

We supported Wendy for a while in the shop but then sneaked out to see what birds were about.

We saw a pied wagtail, 4 collared doves, 2 house sparrows, 4 robins and then to our surprise a little egret in a tree (the shop had reported there were 3 around).

Little egret

There was also a very cheery dunnock in a nearby tree.

Dunnock