Thursday March 9 - American Wigeon twitch

It has been gnawing away at me for some time that I really ought to go and see the female American Wigeon which was expertly picked out by Brian Stretch on his local patch at the end of February. Having promised myself I would twitch one species each month, I was then held up by poor health, social commitments, and work. This morning was my only window of opportunity.

I have to admit that twitching doesn't hold the glamour it once did. As I headed for Grimley, now characterised by a series of flooded gravel pits a few miles north of Worcester, I considered the reasons for going.

The bird itself is a duck, and a pretty dull one at that. An identification challenge if you are lucky enough to be its finder, and only the second to have occurred in Worcestershire, but essentially just a tick on the checklist.

The other reason to consider twitching is the social scene, the chance to meet up with your birding mates. However, to do this effectively your should be quick out of the blocks, something which I most assuredly am not any more. Although I knew the bird had been seen yesterday, I was effectively driving there without knowing whether it would still be present, and whether it was still generating sufficient interest for anyone else to be there.

I needn't have worried. As I stepped from my car another birder ambled up and confirmed it was still here. At the site I found a small group of birders, including Andy Warr who I actually knew. The Wigeon flock was on the far side of the pit, and the bird was fifth from the right, and fast asleep.

It's the one in the middle

There then followed a period of distraction chatting to Andy and trying to get shots of the three Scaup, which had been present for several days and seemed to spend as much time under the water as on it.

Adult male Scaup

First-winter male Scaup

First-winter female Scaup

At this point there was a disturbance among the ducks and I had a brief view of the American Wigeon awake before everything took off. I made a cursory attempt to see it in flight with the 50 or so Eurasian Wigeon, but I couldn't pick it out.

Fortunately they all landed on the next pit, and it was quickly relocated, now 22nd from the left and still asleep.

However, several minutes later it put its head up for a few seconds, and I got the shot.

Awake at last

I decided to scurry off back to Winyates Beasts territory, where I was pleased to see several Brimstones, my first butterflies of the year, enjoying the warmer temperatures. It was 15 degrees centigrade.

The afternoon was spent pleasantly enough off patch, this time at Hillers Garden Centre, Dunnington where I saw another butterfly, this time a Comma, and photographed a number of common birds.

Common Buzzard over the restaurant at Hillers.

Oh, I've given up fly-watching. I caught some kind of house fly on the landing last night. It had all but expired by the morning and has defied my attempts to work out the species.