The weather forecast for today wasn’t brilliant, which resulted in a late
start and we decided to go to Owthorpe in Nottinghamshire to try and see a
wintering Great Grey Shrike. David and I
had seen it at the end of October last year and with it still being present
yesterday we were hoping we would see it again today.
David picked me up at around 09:30 and we then drove through Leicester to
Glenfield to pick up Roger. He had
called us to say that the wintering Blackcap was present in his garden but when
we arrived, it had disappeared, but we went in to have a look, hoping it might
return. It wasn’t too long before Roger
saw it come in and I saw it as it dropped into a low shrub. It then flew again and landed on the ground
but out of sight, although David being taller could see it. I moved my position and as I did it flew
again into a tree and then almost straight away in another bush and
disappeared. With no further sign after
about five minutes we left for Owthorpe.
The journey along the A46 and through Kinoulton was mainly dry but when
we reached the site near Owthorpe it started to rain. We sat in the car a few minutes, seeing a
Common Chiffchaff in the hedgerow alongside the road, but as the rain eased we
got our gear on and walked along the bridal way to view the area the shrike was
being seen in. We spent about ninety
minutes looking over the area, when it was raining most of the time but there
was no sign of the shrike and very little else, the best being a Common
Kestrel.
When the rain started to fall heaier again we decided to go back to the car for lunch, leaving a single birder still looking. When we got back to the car it had stopped raining and another birder had arrived and after giving him some directions we had our lunch.
It was still dry after we finished our lunch and we walked back down the
bridal path again to join the other two birders. They still hadn’t seen the bird, but we were
now a little more optimistic as it wasn’t raining and there was a suggestion of
sunshine at one point. I went and
checked a favoured hedgerow from the other side finding a Common Buzzard and a
Common Reed Bunting and when I went back and joined David and Roger they had
found a Eurasian Sparrowhawk perched in a bush.
It was now raining again and with the cloud thickening we called it a
day and went back to the car.
We called at Watermead South in Leicestershire on the way back and found
ten Little Egrets alongside the entrance road.
The car park overlooks a lake where people feed the birds and there was
a mass of birds being fed as we parked.
We scanned through the flock, mainly Mute Swan and Canada Goose and
found a single male Red-crested Pochard.
There was also a single Eurasian Wigeon on the lake and two immature
European Herring Gulls over the lake.
From Watermead we went to the northern section of Swithland Reservoir but
saw very little, although there were plenty of Tufted Duck and a few Common
Goldeneye but little else. We drove
around to the southern section, but it started to rain heavy again and with the
viewing from the car poor we decided to go to Cropston Reservoir, where we saw
very little.
With the weather still showing no signs of improvement we headed off home
finding the road through Anstey closed and the road to Thurcaston flooded and so
we had to go back via Newtown Linford to get back to Roger’s. After dropping him off we went back via Fosse
Park to Wigston where the River Soar was in flood with most of the fields under
water.
It hadn’t been a very successful day, although the Blackcap was a
year-tick moving my year-list onto 165.
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