Friday 4th March 2011 - Shenstone

A fairly quite day around the patch today...or so it seemed on first inspection. For starters I still haven't connected with the elusive patch Grey Partridges and today I didn't see a single Corn Bunting! All was not lost and the Back Lane/Butts Lane area proved top be the most productive area today.

At the Back Lane/Butts Lane triangle there were 16 Yellowhammers and 8 Reed Buntings present. These birds were feeding on the adjacent stubble and then perching up along the hedgerow. As the sun was shining and the wind was calm I managed to get off some nice Reed Bunting photos which was very pleasing. At 1:00 pm, whilst on Back Lane, I had a Goosander (redhead) fly over from the SE heading towards Stone. This may be the same bird that TMH recorded a couple of days back or just another flyover. There certainly have been good numbers of Goosander a few miles up the road at Hagley...so it could be possibly one of those. 5 Skylarks were up singing along Butts Lane.

Also of note around the patch today were: a Goldcrest at the edge of Stanklyn Wood and a single Redwing in trees by college along Heath Lane. A Common Buzzard and a ♀ Kestrel were also along present in this area.

At Stanklyn lane 90 Linnets (a flock of 40 and another of 50) were present (TMH)

Reed Bunting - 4th March 2011:

4 comments:

  1. Nice Reed Bunt Jase! They should be showing up on the Wedge soon.

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  2. Cheers Craig. We are probably only a week or so away from the first ChiffChaff ...a week or so later maybe Wheatear...so its on the verge of beginning!

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  3. Hi Jason, love Reed Bunting, very underestimated bird. I live on a marina and am lucky enough to have a large population living in the surrounding reeds!

    Nice Blog.

    http://www.keithsbirding.blogspot.com/

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  4. Thank you Keith...they are an underated bird..you cant beat a nice male perched up singing.

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