Red-flanked Bluetail, Wiltshire / Gloucestershire border

Red-flanked bluetail 1 1st winter male
Raven 3
Buzzard 2

We risked the dire weather forecast for the south-west today and headed to Shirehill farm at Marshfield on the Wiltshire / Gloucestershire border. There has been a first winter male Red-flanked bluetail showing well for about five days along a swollen brook, which is the border between the two counties. It's a very unusual time of year for this species to be seen in the UK, though of course it may well have been in the country since the end of October which is the more usual time for them to occur.

The weather was great this morning, sunny with little more than a breeze, and the bird performed well, mainly staying in a hawthorn bush, but occasionally dropping onto the ground to feed. A really stunning bird, very similar to a Robin in many respects, but MUCH brighter and more colourful, especially in summer plumage. Red-flanked bluetail is one of those mythical birds which when you start birding you think you'll never see. That's what I thought 40 years ago, so today was a very special day!

I'm now getting dangerously close to joining the 400 club, so I've had a tidy up of my list and removed four species which technically shouldn't be on there, leaving me with the following:

UK Life list: 395 (Red-flanked bluetail)

Year 2014: 133 (which amazingly is SIX better than at the same time last year, which was my best ever year by a mile!).

Shirehill Farm. What a beautiful place, and to think they now have Red-flanked bluetail on their garden list (at least two people from the farm were in the "garden" with binoculars while we were there and the bird does occasionally pop onto their side of the brook to feed).

Hams Hall Industrial Estate, Warwickshire

Green sandpiper 1
Teal 1
Grey wagtail 2

We called in at this grim place on the way back from the heavenly Shirehill Farm, in the hope of seeing a Hume's leaf warbler. No chance. The weather was starting to turn and it had gone quite windy, making hearing the little blighter all but impossible, and with that hindrance, seeing it as it creeped its way along the base of the thick bramble was even less likely. We abandoned the search, but not before we had seen a nice Green sandpiper on the river.

Lesser Scaup, Tittesworth Reservoir, Staffordshire

Lesser scaup 1 ad male

By the time we got to Tittesworth just north of Leek the weather had really gone down hill, and at first it seemed that we had dipped on the Lesser scaup. However a last minute search of a bay we hadn't noticed when we first arrived paid dividends and we had a reasonable view of the bird.

Marshside revisited

Dunlin 10,000+
Rock pipit 2
Grey plover 50
Bar-tailed godwit 50
Black-tailed godwit 50
Wigeon 1000s
Ross's goose 1
Pink-footed geese
Cormorant 500

Plus hundreds of shelduck, curlew, redshanks, lapwings, pintail, teal, skylarks and thousands of gulls!

It's hard to put into words just how fabulous the dunlin were, and no photo can do them justice. Flying in formation, glistening dazzlingly white when the sunlight caught their bellies, yet almost disappearing when they turned their dark backs to us, they twisted and turned, sometimes flying right over our heads, at other times snaking away into the distance, they were like some huge living organism. One of the great sights of nature, every bit as good as the Serengeti and a lot cheaper!

Today was a very different day to yesterday, much sunnier and much warmer, we walked a circular walk all around the perimeter of Marshside, admiring the huge wigeon flocks on the inner marsh every bit as much as the aerial displays of the waders on the outer. Many of the star species from yesterday we didn't see today, but that's most likely because we didn't stay in one place, we kept moving, eager for the next rush of adrenaline and excitement. The bare list of species seen this weekend and a few photographs which are the equivalent of postage stamp sized windows onto this magnificent spectacle don't begin to portray the experience. I'm exhausted!

How many dunlin are in this photo? This was one of about five such flocks, which I estimated totalled at least 10,000 birds altogether. If you don't agree, please feel free to count the birds in this photo and multiply by five and let me have the answer on a postcard and I'll gladly change it!

Cormorants, gulls and waders on the last remaining island before the flood. Anybody else wonder if the flying gull just below dead centre of the photo is a Mediterranean gull?

Eccleston Mere

Shoveler 4 (3mm, 1f)
Pochard 16 (13mm, 3ff)
Teal 8
Tufted duck 8
Mute swan 4 (3 ads, 1 juv.)
Kingfisher 1
Lesser redpoll 1
Bullfinch 2
Little grebe 1

A beautiful start to the day at Eccleston Mere, and quite a nice selection of waterfowl beginning to build up.

High tide at Marshside

Short-eared owl 1
Great white egret 1
Water rail 3
Twite 50 (on the beach halfway between the sand plant and the pier)
Merlin 1
Peregrine 1
Ross's goose 1
Long-tailed duck 1 on junction pool
Bar-tailed godwits
Dunlin 1000s
Knot
Pink-footed geese
Wigeon

It was a 10.2m high tide at Southport today, and the sea was right up to the road. We spent a large proportion of our time sheltered from the wind on the northern edge of the old sand plant at Marshside. There were dramatic scenes, with birds flying in all directions. At the tides peak, we had voles and shrews swimming for their lives from the flooded marsh and three water rails were forced out into the open, right in front of us, and took shelter in the grass at the side of the road. The vast clouds of dunlin flying high glittered as the sunlight hit them, and they stretched so far across the sky, that they looked like thousands of raindrops against the dark skies to the north. A tremendous spectacle.

Marshside at high tide.

One of the stars of the show, a first winter Ross's goose, not much bigger than the mallard.

Now you can see why it's a first winter!

Not a particularly great picture of two Twite, but of interest because you can clearly see that the bird on the left has a pale blue ring on its left leg, and possibly a pink or red ring also.

Martin Mere

Marsh harrier 1
Whooper swan 500
Ruff 40
Buzzard 1