When you receive a phone call off John Marsh it usually means there’s a rare bird around. Today was slightly different than usual though as this time John didn’t have his camera or scope with him! which is probably rarer than the bird itself, so I quickly got to Red Pools to confirm for him that the subject bird was in-fact a Slavonian Grebe as he suspected. If you’ve not been before, it’s certainly a welly job this time of year and it’s a nice little walk in what’s mostly a reclaimed post-industrial landscape that’s re-wilded to a spectacular variation of scrubs, pools, bogs and reed bed. There were also 3 female Goldeneye on pool 3 but were very flighty. The Slav grebe remained in the furthest corner of pool 3 feeding away with 2 Mute Swans for company. Whilst trying to get a better vantage point of the Slav Grebe I did actually flush a Woodcock from under a birch tree and 40 minutes later I flushed another Woodcock from a different pool which could have been the same one I suppose. If it was, I do apologise woody! 20 Snipe, Redshank, Water Rail, Cetti’s Warbler and a Kingfisher were also present around the pools. I had a Chiffchaff following a Long-tailed Tit flock which didn’t call what so ever, much to my annoyance as I wanted to rule out Siberian Chiffchaff but visually it looked pretty common. I also had a Pied Wagtail that could have easily past for a White Wagtail if it weren’t for the fact that it had tiny faded spots on the mantle which county recorder Darryl Spittle pointed out to me. Turns out it’s a first winter Pied Wagtail which do have very similar features over-all to White Wag.
There were plenty of Redwing, Fieldfare and a noisy Green Woodpecker around and with the shear amount of birds, plenty of predators too with a male Sparrowhawk and female Peregrine working the area.
