Friday the 4th May 2012 - Wyre Forest

Today, I spent the day walking in the Wyre with Tony.  We undertook walks in three different parts of the forest and below is an account of the day.

We started our walk by visiting the Lodge Hill/Knowles area of the forest.  Birdwise this is perhaps the most productive parts of the Wyre and is also the most birdwatched.  Our walk in this area produced 5 Wood Warblers, 3 Tree Pipits and a ♂ Redstart. 

The highlight of the walk was picking up a pair of Pied Flycatchers.  I am not going to post any location specifics for these birds as I wish to minimise disturbance.  Pied Flycatchers have become scarce breeding birds in the Wyre with only 2 or 3 pairs noted annually in recent years.

Also of note during this walk were 7 Lesser Redpoll that were seen near the bridge at Lodge Hill Farm.  Good numbers of Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff were singng and a ♂ Blackcap was showing well near Dry Mill car park.

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The next walk we undertook was around the Uncllys Farm area.  This proved to be very unproductive and the only bird of note was a skulking Garden Warbler that was singing away from the depths of a Holly bush.

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Our final walk of the day was in the Shropshire side of the Wyre at Postensplain.  We had headed here, now it had started to warm up a little, in the hope of seeing Grizzled Skipper and Pearl-bordered Fritillary.  Needless to say we saw neither.  In fact the only butterfly on the wing was a single Speckled Wood. 

As always with the Wyre there were other things to see and we noted many Dor Beetles and a small number of Green Tiger Beetles.

It was also a fairly productive walk for birds with 2 Tree Pipits, 2 Garden Warblers, 4 singing Willow Warblers, 4 singing Chiffchaffs and a ♂ Blackcap noted.

♂ Pied Flycatcher

Dor Beetle (Geotrupes stercorarius)