Brocton Coppice

Beautiful sunny day again so we went onto Cannock Chase mainly to see a Stonechat which have few and far between this year, I’ve been all over and not seen one. The bad winter we had must have decimated them. They were still few and far between again this morning but I did manage to see a female briefly. We had a few more good birds as well, Redstart, Cuckoo, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Green Woodpecker. Plenty of Warblers no shortage of Willow Warblers on the Chase also Blackcaps and Whitethroats.

Best of all though this morning was the colony of Small Pearl Boredered Fritillary’s in the Sherbrook Valley.  Last year I posted that I thought the colony must have died out as we hadn’t seen one for over 2 years due to the dreadful weather we’d had at the time when they were supposed to be on the wing. With all the sun we’ve had this year we found that the colony was thriving we saw at least 12 individuals, fabulous!

Small Pearl Boredered Fritillary one of at least 12 we saw this morning

Another butterfly which has been in short supply over the last few years is the Small Heath, yet again there was no shortage of these on the Chase today.

Small Heath, no shortage of these this morning.

Now that we’re back to normal following holidays, trips to London and Field trips to Northumberland & Yorkshire. We couldn’t believe our luck that the Great Reed Warbler was still in Derbyshire ( I think every birder in the country must have seen it by now bar us). So off we went to find it. I ‘d looked up Straws’ Bridge Nature Reserve on Google and found it’s location near Ilkeston.

Having arrived at the reserve we walked round the first pool and on approaching the second we could hear this bird singing, nothing like I’d heard before. We met a birder coming towards us who confirmed it was the Great Reed Warbler, Great!. It was at the far end of the pool in a clump reeds about 15 yds long by 3yds wide. Despite it continually singing we and 10 or so other birders could not locate it. We were there for nearly an hour when we saw it briefly at the bottom of the reeds. Then just as we were about to leave it popped up on top of the reeds to wave us goodbye. What a cracking sighting and another life tick.

Great Reed Warbler, Straws’ Bridge Nature Reserve, Ilkeston, Derbyshire.

One bird which we have never seen in our 26 years of Birding is the Roseate Tern so we thought we’d have a put for it. The best place to see them is in Northumberland at Coquet Island just off shore at Amble.

Coquet Island from Amble Northumberland, the home of the Roseate Tern

We called at Hauxley Nature reserve just south of Amble where the Warden told us that all the birds to the right of the jetty on the Island would be Roseate Terns.

Birds to the right of the jetty presumably Roseate Terns (Common Terns also nest on the island)

Roseate Terns visit Hauxley Nature Reserve mainly when the tides in to take fresh water. We did finally get to see them pretty close from the shore at Hauxley in the afternoon. GREAT a life tick!!! We’ve been chasing the Roseate Tern since we went to Cemlyn Bay in Anglesey in the 1980′s.

There were lots of wild flowers at Hauxley, Northern and Common Spotted Orchids and others which we didn’t recognise.

Northern marsh Orchid

Common Spotted Orchid

Large Skipper also seen at Hauxley

The second day of this trip was to call in at Wykeham forest near Scarborough to try to see the Honey Buzzard. I had seen one here last year but they appear to be few and far between this year and after spending the morning there we hadn’t seen one but a great consolation were Goshawks we saw 4. We spent the Afternoon at Bempton cliffs seeing the Seabird colony. Puffin, Razorbill, Guillemot, Fulmar, Kittiwake and Gannet. (All year ticks).

Razobill, Bempton Cliffs

Guillemot

Puffins (the only ones we saw were on the sea)

Fulmar

Kittiwake

Bempton Cliffs

Wall Brown at Bempton

We spent the night at the Travel Lodge in Scarborough across the road from the Grand Hotel where Kittiwakes were nesting on the end of the building.

The Grand Hotel Scarborough with nesting Kittiwakes

We had another put at Wykeham the following morning still no Honey Buzzard but we did get Turtle Doves seeing 2 and hearing another 2 again this was a nice consolation they haven’t shot all of them on Malta.

A Willow Warbler at Wykeham kept singing from the top of the tree

A Tree Pipit at Wykeham kept displaying and coming down on this tree

Finally our last stop was at Blacktoft Sands we had a couple of fantastic hours here seeing Spoonbill, Spotted Redhanks Bearded Tits etc etc, here’s a few photos.

Spoonbill, Blacktoft Sands 17/6/2010

Avocets & Spotted Redshanks

Snipe

Redshanks

Black Tailed Godwits

Avocet

All in all a fabulous couple of days. One Life tick and 8 year ticks.

A quiet day today a bit windy I think everything was keeping it’s head down. I didn’t even take a photo. One bird which was quite prolific was the Reed Warbler this is a photo I took at Belvide a few years ago.

Reed Warbler taken at Belvide 26th June 2005