Cotswolds and Lifers

A couple of weeks ago Nick had kindly asked me if I'd like to visit the Cotswold Water Park during half term week to look for Smew, so this morning that's exactly what we did. Bun also came along, he'd seen Smew there last year but was keen to repeat the experience. There has also been a Great Grey Shrike showing well near to the town of Cirencester, so naturally we had to go for that too, especially as Nick has dipped so many in Hampshire.

Here's how our day panned out:

First stop was the Great Grey Shrike location near Cirencester, and very scenic it was too, not exactly the sort of setting one would expect to be looking at a Great Grey Shrike in, it was a field of rank vegetation alongside a lay- by, on a dual carriageway, under some pylons, opposite a massive Tesco superstore! Gorgeous.

It was raining and the rain was fizzing as it hit the overhead powerlines..

Bun patiently keeps his scope fixed on the one tree in the field...

...This shortly appeared.

It sat in the tree for a good while, giving superb views. Unfortunately the rain and murk made photos a bit ropey, as you can see, but so what! It was a bostin' bird and a lifer for Nick and myself!

Great Grey Shrike induced smiles, Nick's obviously particularly pleased.

After this successful twitch we made our way to the 'several million' lakes which make up the Cotswold Water Park. When we arrived it was quite foggy and so chances of spotting distant ducks were small.

Lake 43, after the fog had started to clear!

Despite the poor visibility we soon spotted some of the hundreds of Red-crested Pochards, Nick's and my first 'wild' ones. There were also plenty of Goosanders, Goldeneye, Wigeon, Pochard and Tufted Ducks, millions of them! Right at the back of lake 43 in the murk Nick spotted the ducks we'd come to see, Smew! We expected them to be too wary for us to get any closer, but fortunately they had their minds too firmly fixed on each other to notice us. We had really nice views and they were very entertaining . There were nine redheads and three simply stunning drakes! It was still a bit misty for photos to do them justice but we had a stab at some. I say we because Bun had his new camera and was somewhat pleased to have got a recognisable result!

"Look. Look I've got a photo of some Smew!"
(If you look closely you can see them on his camera's screen)
Bun isn't as portly as this photo suggests; that's an enormous flask of coffee subtly hidden inside his jacket!

Here are a couple of my better efforts, great birds and every bit as stunning as I imagined they'd be :-)

As we were leaving a few started to fly around a bit and I got a 'nice' flight shot!

Now I know what to look out for flying past Seaton. It could happen!

Also a short video clip:

When we arrived back in Seaton we saw Steve at Coronation Corner, he'd seen two Iceland Gulls, the darker one from yesterday and the smaller pale one. We enjoyed good views of the former, rounding off an excellent day, nicely. :-)

Two New Iceland Gulls....Well For Me......I Think!?

I didn't really expect to see any birds today having been in Sidmouth for most of it with visiting relatives. I was back in time for a quick pre-work look along the estuary though, Ian M was already at Coronation Corner and was already looking at an Iceland Gull, which not long afterwards was joined by yet another! I took some snaps of both and I'm inclined to think they are both new birds for me at least. I think one was the individual seen by Phil and Gav on Sunday (the one I missed) and the other possibly the Saturday bird which was also probably the same one that was on Beer Beach before that. It's all getting very confusing! No matter what they were great!

Here are some pics of them, do you think I'm right? Anyone have an opinion?

Could be the first of the Sunday Birds?



Unfortunately the second bird was always a bit distant to photograph at all clearly but it looked like the Saturday one.

My Evening Off

This evening was likely as not going to be my only free evening all week, usually I have Mondays off too, but this week I'm working it in order to be free on Thursday evening to watch Martha in the Seaton Pantomime Society's production of Beauty and The Beast, she will (rather fittingly) be playing the role of The Beast! Therefore I needed to make the most of it by staying out in the field as long as possible. Unfortunately I had promised Martha a lift to rehearsals at 4 o' clock so couldn't get out to look at the gulls until just after this, and consequently arrived just in the nick of time to miss yet another Iceland Gull, happily though Gav and Phil soon found another at Coronation Corner. I like Iceland Gulls, a lot, and never tire of seeing them, because unlike some birds, you definitely can't say "Seen one you've seen 'em all". I rather hastily counted this bird as my fourth different individual but on looking at Gav's photos of Wednesdays bird I could see they were one and the same. My recall is obviously not up to much, but in its defense I did only have a brief scope view of the bird on Wednesday, and had remembered it as being darker than it was. It's certainly a good job that we can get photos of most birds for later comparison.

Here are a couple of photos of today's Coronation Corner bird:

I liked this one because the 'Shelduck dominated background' makes it stand out nicely.

I put this one on for no reason whatsoever.

The glut of Iceland Gulls appears to have brought in quite a few birders over the weekend, there were three at Coronation Corner this evening and a couple more I noticed further down river. Here's the scene at CC.

A 'large' gathering for a Sunday evening at Cori Corner, although two of these are regulars you may recognise.

As well as the Iceland Gulls there were also plenty of Med Gulls on the estuary, I only saw a handful of them but Gav and Phil counted a record number. The female Common Scoter was still on the river too, for a reason only known to her. As the light faded I took this artistic snap of a (mostly ignored) estuary habitue:

"Red Shanks in the Sunset"

In the last of the twilight I popped over to Musbury and saw three Little Owls on Watery Lane, a year tick no less, "Softly softly catchee monkey"! :-)