Tuesday 25 September 2012

25-9-12

No birding tonight as the rain was pretty constant however the news of a Long-tailed Skua flying through Belvide reservoir was a bit exciting.  What else is flying past this afternoon?????
Anyway down to this post.  A few posts ago I mentioned about I keep a record of each visit to Whitemoor Haye and at the end of the year I tally up totals of visits and be a nerd and turn them into percentages of presence and below are the previous five years if anyone is slightly interested!!!!!

2011  103 visits
1 Carrion Crow - 95.1%
2 Black Headed Gull - 87.4%
3= Woodpigeon - 86.4%
3= Mallard - 86.4%
5 Tree Sparrow - 85.4%

2010  87 visits
1 Woodpigeon - 91.1%
2 Carrion Crow - 90%
3 Magpie - 85.3%
4 Black Headed Gull - 81.1%
5 Lapwing 77.7%

2009  64 visits
1 Carrion Crow - 92.2%
2 Magpie - 81.2%
3 Black Headed Gull - 78.1%
4 Wren - 76.6%
5 Woodpigeon - 75%

2008  57 visits
1 Carrion Crow - 94.7%
2= Magpie - 80.7%
2= Woodpigeon 80.7%
4 Black Headed Gull - 77.2%
5 Lapwing - 68.4%

2007  58 visits
1 Carrion Crow - 89.6%
2 Magpie - 77.6%
3 Woodpigeon - 65.5%
4 Mute Swan - 60.3%
5 Lapwing - 56.9%

Something a little bit nerdy!!!!!!!!!

Monday 24 September 2012

24-9-12

Having left work to go home at lunchtime (work from home rather than spread the disease around the office) I decided to get a bit of fresh air once the rain had stopped and had an hour down WH.  A hung around the quarry lake but the birding was poor.  Birds noted were Magpie, Carrion Crow, Swallow, Dunnock, Woodpigeon, Lesser Black-backed Gull - there was a steady stream of these and Black Headed Gull onto the far lake prior to dusk, these birds must be using here as a roost, 1 Great Crested Grebe, Canada Geese, Robin, Linnet and a Pied Wagtail.  A drive around the lanes produced 56 Lapwing, 1 Grey Heron, 2 Sparrowhawks, a few Meadow Pipits, 1 Kestrel, a Pheasant, 1 Buzzard, 1 Tree Sparrow, 1 Tufted Duck and 4 Mallards.
Lots of Swallows were passing through tonight in quite high numbers on their epic trip back to Africa.

Whilst hanging around the pool tonight I couldnt help thinking about the demise of the birding on the pool obviously down to the activity centre.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing and this blog really is ten years to late, Alrewas Birder should only just have started and this one just ended.  Never mind, I wiull perservere and I will soon get round to adding my away adventures, there have been a few but just cannot remeber how to put them on the seperate tabs.   

23-9-12

With no change in my horrendous man-flu I managed to drag myself off ther couch and pop down to WH to see what was around, especially as the forecasted rain had not yet arrived.  Birds noted around the quarry pool area were 2 Great Crested Grebe, 3 Mute Swan, Black Headed Gull, Canada Geese, Mipits, Blackbird, Wren, 2 Grey Heron, Carrion Crow, about 250 Woodpigeons flew over + another 50+ around the site, Starlings, 1 Little Egret, circa 200 Goldfinch, several Robins around, 300+ Linnets - I do not remember these numbers around here before, Stock Dove, 1 Tufted Duck, 4 Mallards and a few Pheasants.  On to the lanes and I added around 100 Lapwings, Moorhen, Magpie, a single Jay, Skylarks, Reed Bunting, Great Tit, Jackdaw, Dunnock, Swallow and Long-tailed Tits. 

22-9-12

Its been sometime since the last blog post but I have had the audacity to go away on holiday and not a birding holiday either, none of them for me this year.  Nuff said on the holiday front, do not want to tell me people of my other sad hobbies.  Anyway a nice break was followed by man-flu.  Bad or what.  Baird's Sandpipers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Western Sandpipers and Short-billed Dowitchers, all lifers to go on my quite tragic life list, and all I could do is sit at home sniffling, shivering and coughing.  I did pop down to the old faithful though and birds noted here were Starling, Woodpigeon, Robin, 3 Mallards, Wren, a single Tufted Duck, 3 Mute Swan, 1 Great Crested Grebe, Magpie, Great Tit, circa 55 Goldfinch, Carrion Crow, several Skylarks, a steady stream of Swallows passing through, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Long-tailed Tits, Pied Wagtail, Blue Tit, Blackbird, a single Treecreeper, circa 250 Linnets, 1 Yellow Wagtail, 2 Buzzards, circa 200 Lapwing, a few Meadow Pipits, a nice bonus in the shape of a female/juvenile Merlin hunting pipits and larks, 3 Grey Herons, Jackdaws and the sound of a Curlew over the far pits but not seen.  With my energy levels seriously lacking it was home to sleep, cough, sneeze and whimper.

Monday 3 September 2012

3-9-12

I was not meant to be birding tonight but my dog needed a walk so we went round WH and carried my binoculars with me however my scope was in the car and I suppose a stop at the quarry pool would not go amiss.  Around the lanes first and birds noted were Carrion Crow, about 130 Linnet, Black Headed Gull, about 40 Tree Sparrow around the site, 1 Buzzard, Woodpigeon, Robin, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Stock Dove, Pheasant, Jackdaw, Swallow, Magpie, Yellowhammer, Wren, and about 10 Goldfinch on the pig field however there were definately more feeding on the thistle heads.  A quick stop at the quarry pool and I added 1 Cormorant flying over, 1 Tufted Duck, Canada Geese, 2 Common Sandpiper, Pied Wagtail, 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker, 6 Yellow Wagtail on the quarry, Great Tit, 2 Lapwing over, 2 Treecreeper, Blackbird and Starling.   

2-9-12

Not a very good day as I was not feeling too good today but I neede to get a bit of fresh air and the dog needed walking so I got my backside off the seteeand headed out.  At the quarry pool I noted about 100 restless Goldfinch flying and feeding, Linnet, Robin, 2 calling Grey Partridge, Wren, Swallow, Canada Geese, Cormorant, Black Headed Gull, Carrion Crow, Dunnock, Magpie, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Chaffinch, 2 Common Sandpiper, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Mute Swan, 2 Common Whitethroat, 3 Chiffchaff in the hedges, Pied Wagtail, Blue Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Pheasant and Great Tit.  On to the lanes and I added Moorhen, 2 Yellow Wagtails over, 1 Little Owl, about 20 Tree Sparrows, Jackdaw, Starling, 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker and a fly over Mallard.

27-8-12

Twitching.  Local patch birding.  Garden birding Whatever the birding that you prefer ther is a reason for it.  I love all of the above but my main birding is local patch birding, trying to find new stuff for a patch as wellas recording what and how many are present.  Having birded Whitemoor Haye for over 10 years I am slowly building up records of birds present on days and I keep these in various forms.  One form is a kind of scatter graph that I keep and at the end of the year I count up how many times a bird has been recorded and then work out the percentage for the year.  Sad eh????  Anyway one day maybe I will show my findings, in the meantime it is back to good old patch work and I was in  for a bit of a bonus.
First stop was the usual quarry pool and birds noted were Woodpigeon, Carrion Crow, Swallow, Pied Wagtail, Grey Heron, Cormorant, Pheasant, Black Headed Gull, Tree Sparrow, Sand Martin, Buzzard (in total I counted 7 throughout the area), Mute Swan, Lesser Black-backed Gull, 14 Lapwing over, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Goldfinch and also a cracking bonus.  Whilst checking over the pool I heard a Buzzard calling and I had a look through the bins at what I thought were two but in fact one was a Red Kite.  Not a suprising bird nowadays as they seem to be reported almost weekly but this was my first for Whitemoor Haye and also my first for Staffordshire at long last.  It hung around for 10 minutes before heading towards the field by Sittles farm so I decided to jump in my car hoping to photograph the bird but when I got to the field there was no sign for a short while before I suddenly saw it flying westwards before disappearing over the quarry.  Unfortunately no photograph but what a bird.  I headed back to the quarry to add House Martin before heading around the lanes and I added Stock Dove, 1 hawking Hobby, Linnet, 4 Mallard, Canada Geese, Common Whitethroat and Great Tit.  Not a bad session and the reason why local patch work is great.