West meets East in the Midlands
West meets East in the Midlands!
We have been on the road again, this time heading down to Tamworth to give a talk to the West Midlands Bird Club. Our route took us close to Tittersworth Reservoir in Staffordshire where a Lesser Scaup had been seen. Of course we made the detour to have a look. Luckily we quickly located this rare visitor from North America and enjoyed great views through the Leica scopes. The Lesser Scaup was feeding with three Tufted Duck and a drake Pochard so easy to keep track of as it dived for food. It was cold and we headed off to the excellent visitor centre for a welcome hot drink. Tittersworth is a great place and we hope we can visit again soon.
Our talk went down well, The Biggest Twitch is always a crowd pleaser! Many of the audience very kindly said that it was the best presentation that they had seen, so that was really great to hear. We hope we can return and give another talk in the future.
This morning we drove the short distance from Tamworth to Coleshill in Warwickshire to look for another rare bird. A little confusion over the access was soon sorted when we spotted a birder on the river bank. Walking down to join him we saw a small group of birders stood on a bridge all looking intently into the trees, good sign?
We hurried over to join them and quickly saw the Hume's leaf Warbler moving through the bare trees near the bridge! Brilliant to see this rarity so quickly, the Hume's should be in Pakistan or Northern India not by a stream in the Midlands. This tiny bird was a very long way from home but seemed to be happy feeding here with half a dozen Chiffchaff. The rarity soon moved out of sight and we thanked our luck that we had arrived when we did.
We waited a while, watching Chiffchaffs and Long-tailed Tits but no further sign of the Hume's Warbler. We decided to change position and walked a little further along the path and within a few minutes relocated the bird feeding in a silver birch in the sunshine. We had brilliant views here and even managed to watch it through the scope.
Very happy with our two rare birds and a succesful talk we headed for home and tonights talk at Porthmadog Football Club, Porthmadog, Gwynedd. This talk is a fund raiser for the Glaslyn Wildlife group do come along if you can, 7.30pm.