Midlands Birding Blog

Something that’s always been difficult for me has been finding the line between listing and watching, between enjoying a rare bird and appreciating what I see every day. It’s something you might call the Birder's Paradox - how can I truly enjoy a rare bird if I forget to enjoy those that are more common? I started to think about what birds symbolise 'home' to me. What birds do I see every day and often forget to give a second glance.  Back home in Leicestershire, this might be the birds on the garden feeder - the Goldfinches, for example - along with House Sparrows and Blackbirds. In my uni house in Bath, larger birds are the main cast - Herring, Lesser-black Backed and Black-headed Gulls are everywhere. Cormorants are common and there's always a Pied Wagtail on the road outside. It struck me how different these were. A Goldfinch in the single tree that I can see from my Bath apartment would be a breath of fresh air, and I find myself celebrating a garden Pied Wagtail b...

In an isolated tree in the middle of Southgate shopping centre in Bath, hundreds of Pied Wagtails flock together to roost on winter nights. I never would have noticed them, had I not been walking by late one night last year and wondered why the tree still had leaves in the winter. It was only on a second glance that I realised those "leaves" were moving! Since then, I've been back many times. There are few things more peaceful than standing on a cold winter night in the middle of a busy city watching these birds huddled together, sleeping peacefully overhead. For me, birding has always been an escape and a way to release stress; this sight has to be up there as one of the most calming. During my three years of university, I have shown the Pied Wagtails to many non-birding friends, and every time without fail they've been met with reactions of surprise and awe, and invariably seem to spark an interest in why they're there and what sort of bird they are.  The Wagtai...

Spring can’t come quickly enough at this time of year. But right now, it definitely feels a long way off. A few walks around Bath recently have failed to produce a hoped-for Chiffchaff and the weather is definitely still very wintry. It’s been a quiet winter here all-round bird-wise. A Yellow-browed Warbler reported online at Weston Recycling Centre early in the winter, just down the road, failed to show despite me putting in a decent amount of time searching for it and winter thrushes have been very thin on the ground – and winter finches non-existent. The main highlights here this winter have been my first sighting of Tawny Owl in Victoria Park, my first Rook and also a Kingfisher downriver at Green Park early on in the winter. Best of all, has been enjoying the Pied Wagtail roost in Southgate Shopping Centre, sometimes containing several hundred birds, all silently sitting in the trees in the middle of the busy shopping centre. A section of the Pied Wagtail roost outs...