Midlands Birding Blog

I was home from uni for the weekend and took the chance to visit Willington in case of a really early Wheatear or Garganey, but mostly just to see how it was getting on and what was about. I knew the River Trent was flooded along most of its course and packed wellies ready for some flooding. What I wasn't expecting however was knee-deep water even before the car parking area. The entire entrance to the lane was connected to the river and too deep to drive through. Without waders, it would be completely impassable and even then it might be a challenge. This certainly explains the dearth of reports online from Willington online lately and is quite concerning. Who knows how the resident birds will have fared, as the main lake might now be connected to the Trent! I'd be really interested to know if anyone has attempted to get down there and assess the situation, hopefully it's not as dire as it seems from the entrance track. Gutted that we couldn't visit Willington, I ma...

I’ve always considered myself halfway between a birdwatcher and a twitcher; I’ve never travelled long distances to see rarities but I can’t deny that buzz of seeing or even better finding one. I am a lister I suppose. I keep many different lists and always record what I see – I don’t drive across the country to see a Black-winged Pratincole but if I’m at Frampton Marsh when one is found I’ll certainly be the first in the queue to see it! I suppose you could say I twitch opportunities – I would travel a long way to visit Wells Woods during a easterly wind in the autumn but not really because there’s a Hume’s Warbler found there, rather because I want the opportunity to find the other rarity that might be lurking there!  You would be right in saying though that I’m certainly in the group of ‘one’s to watch’ in becoming a twitcher – I could easily become someone who travels to Cornwall to see an American Robin hopping round a suburban car park. It’s for this reason that I’m always ...

We ventured as far east as Wells, where a quick stop at the fields west of the town failed to produce the hoped-for Rough-Legged Buzzard. This was likely because I didn’t put in as much time as was necessary to see the bird, as my mum and sister were waiting in the car. However, I was hoping the fields with the bird in to be viewable from the roadside. Instead, a wide track runs north from the road through the fields for around 1km with fields either side – a large area to cover with limited time and something worth noting if you are planning to look for the bird. Of course, you could get lucky and have it by the road I’m sure. At this point, my mum and sister headed for Burnham Market and dropped my dad and I at the north end of Lady Anne’s Drive on the way. We walked North along the boardwalk and down into Holkham Gap to look in particular or Shorelark. This area is daunting to the newcomer (something I found when I saw the larks here last year) and the birds range widely along t...

At the end of my university’s Inter Semester Break my family and I went on holiday to Norfolk for a long weekend from 31/01 to 02/02. As a family, we love coming here, especially Titchwell Marsh. Arriving late on Friday night, we had just one hour of light remaining and had a quick trip to Titchwell to enjoy the Harrier roost and flocks of birds coming to roost on the freshmarsh. There’s something quite enigmatic about Titchwell in the evening as it’s going dark, with skeins of geese passing noisily overhead, harriers circling silently over the reeds and the eerie silhouettes of Curlew and Egrets passing over the saltmarsh in front of the setting sun. For such a short visit, we racked up a healthy list of nearly 50 species including my first Pink-footed and Brent Geese of the year, a huge flock of Golden Plover, with a few Knot, on the freshmarsh and hundreds of waders on the beach at low tide, including Bar-tailed Godwit, Turnstone and Grey Plover. A Red-breasted Merganser was close ...