Friday February 16

A frosty start heralded a fine sunny morning. I headed straight for Arrow Valley Lake and started birding. The lake was about one third ice, and I counted 159 Black-headed Gulls and seven Lesser Black-backed Gulls standing on it.

The open water hosted pretty much the same birds as last week, including nine Great Crested Grebes, two Shovelers, and a pair of Goosander. The latter were clearly an item, and this was confirmed when the drake began to display.

A displaying drake Goosander

Several Grey Herons are now incubating on their island tree nests, and a single Little Egret flew in to perch in its usual spot.

Little Egret

Mallard

A pair of Mistle Thrushes were chasing one another around, and singing birds included a Treecreeper.  Alarm calls from the island helped me to locate a male Sparrowhawk perched on top of a tree. This was all very lovely but I couldn't face a second circuit so I drove to Ipsley Alders to try my luck there.

Within a couple minutes I had scored. I raised my bins to check out a corvid, a Rook, when I noticed a raptor circling behind it. After a few seconds I could just about make out some black and white around the head which confirmed my first impression that it was a Peregrine. Unfortunately it would have required a lot of luck to get any kind of image for the camera, and indeed the attempt failed, the bird appearing to vanish as I switched back to the bins to try to relocate it.

This was an Ipsley Alders tick, and only the second I have seen over Redditch since we moved here. Not that I have looked much. The rest of the walk around was pleasant enough; a Green Woodpecker, a drumming Great Spotted Woodpecker, and lots of little birds in the woodland including a party of furiously calling Goldcrests (seven strong).

I also bumped into Andy Harris who was clearing away wood shavings from a recently coppiced area next to the pool. Andy works for the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and we exchanged stories about the reserve. On one occasion someone had photographed an Adder here, miles from the currently understood distribution of the species, and in somewhat incongruous habitat. Apparently there was no doubt at all about the identification, and with no further sightings the Trust were left to surmise that perhaps a well-meaning person had released their pet snake on the site.

Or perhaps they really do occur here.