Monday 29 February 2016

Willow Tits & Long-billed Dowitcher

Leaving home at 6am this morning we headed up the M1 and dropped in at Kelham Bridge hoping to connect with Willow Tit. After scanning the feeders for several minutes a single bird came down to feed on the fat balls in the company of Great, Blue and Long-tailed Tits.








From Kelham we headed East and after thirty eight miles pulled into the car park at Rutland Water. Having collected tickets from the reserve centre we headed along the track. The Long-billed Dowitcher had again been seen on Lagoon III from the Shoveler Hide. The hide was packed with birders, leaving very little room to try and scan the area the bird had been favouring. Eventually we managed to grab a seat and eventually the Dowitcher appeared on the grass bank and then headed for the water's edge allowing us to get good views before we moved out of the hide to let others grab a look.

Long-billed Dowitcher




Before heading home we headed to Welney. News hadn't been good regarding the White Stork. With no positive sightings other than a brief flight view over Downham Market mid morning.
Plenty of birders had turned up in the hope that it might fly back in to roost as it had done the previous evening. But unfortunately there was to be no sign of the bird tonight.

P.S: Looks like the Polish rung White Stork didn't fly in from quite as far as Poland!!
Instead of the 1,751 km from Warsaw in Poland, It seems to have made the shorter trip of 50 miles from Shorelands Wildlife Gardens in Diss, Norfolk.
Statement on Shorelands website reads as below.

"As many people will know, we are working with a variety of colleagues to see if its viable to return the White Stork to the UK as a breeding species. One of the main questions has been will they migrate and we have been looking at European projects to see how best we might encourage this. We have been monitoring the rehabilitation of our Polish storks as three birds appear to be making full recoveries and we were wondering if we should return them to Poland. One bird appears to have made up his own mind and an adult male (Green Ring Z1213 - Metal Ring VN6073) was seen leaving our site and flying west and has been spotted at WWT Welney (approximately 50 miles west of Shorelands). What will he do next? Lets hope he gets his bearings returns to his Polish territory."






No comments:

Post a Comment