Melverley floods - Whooper Swans

This was my fourth successive day cruising the floods and it was business as usual on the wildfowl front but the gull numbers were plummeting. It was also my lucky day! Apart from one brief encounter at dusk with a family of Whoopers, they were normally 100's of metres away! As I approached of the best vantage points, there were at least ten Whooper Swans within decent range! I parked up in a gateway.....

#Icouldn'tbelievemyluck

Lots of photo opportunities as they had clearly 'accepted' me!

Swimming ever closer to me!

And feeding on the submerged crop....

One individual having a preen!

And eventually, close enough for close up crops!

I had hopes of trying to photograph every individual but with them criss crossing, I settled for a random approach.

Indigestion inducing quite big tuberous roots... attempts at swallowing!

A common problem!

Getting two in focus was a challenge!

But finally lead to the images of the session!

Images of the juveniles to follow and I finally managed to get an accurate count of the family groups! Coming shortly!

Melverley floods - wildfowl and gulls galore!

Floody marvellous day's birding with Kris Webb today cruising around the flooded fields centred on Melverley. Highlights included an amazing scene at out first stop with astonishing number of ducks, estimated counts at one spot alone included: 1,500 Pintail, 1,200 Wigeon, 70 Shoveler, 200 Teal, 3 Tufted Duck, 70 Goosander. I picked out a single Pink-footed Goose amongst the 250 or so Greylag Goose and 100 Canada Geese. Who know what else may be lurking as much of the habitat can't be viewed!

This sign is almost a tourist attraction, if you can get to it?

I'd walked in wellies to it, question is would Kris make it?

Yessssss!

The local AA vehicles were always on hand?

Driving around the Edgerley / Melverley area, every now and then a cloud of gulls would appear in the sky but getting close to them was pretty tricky with most of the connecting roads in the area impassable. We did find a couple of spots to check out the huge flocks, mostly Lesser Black-backed Gull (est 5,000), Black Headed Gulls (est 3,000) just a few Herring Gulls (est 30) and amazing 9 Yellow-legged Gulls (6 ad, 1each 2w/3w/4w).

Here's the nearest of the adult YLGs - through this gate but still not very near!

One of the biggest surprises which got my heart racing was a distant possible white winger. Tom Lowe had picked a possible Iceland out, a a few days earlier. This bird was luckily on the ground abut when scoped turned out to be a leucistic Lesser Black-back Gull. A bit disappointing we hadn't struck Iceland / Glauc but still a cracking bird!

We eventually found a place to view the Whooper Swans near Edgerley after grinding to a halt with impassable roads.  38 were seen with even more Pintail, Wigeon etc plus 9 Shelduck!

Returning to the favoured site late afternoon, one family of Whoopers were feeding close to the roadside, adjacent to a gate. We managed to park up and sit quietly..... the light was seriously dropping however.... Here's one of the adults

Plus two of the youngsters.....

Hand held shots usuing Kris's shoulder while he used the window of the car! Wild swans are nervous and looks like we've been rumbled? Adult plus 1 juv disappearing......

2......

3.....

A lucky moment indeed!

Venus Pool - Goldeneye and Mute Swan

The duck count and range of species at Venus Pool has been steadily on the increase in recent years and I wonder if we will soon be considering Goldeneye as 'regulars'? Two females have been present since the 20th November (plus a male which they couldn't hold on to!)

Here they are in their usual area - as far away from the hides as is possible!

And is this the reason they are happy! Worms galore, I know they are the 'bowels of the earth' but does that includes pools too?

And they did come close (ish) today....

But no nearer than they needed to!

Every swan flying in at this time of year gets my attention - a Whooper or even Bewick's maybe?
Another Mute swan drops in (there were 42 present at first light on new years day)

And given the glorious light, was well worth firing a landing shot burst!

The problem with head on landings is.... they soon exceed the frame!

Now what I need is a few wild swans to make my day, hmmmm maybe the floods at Melverley?

New Year cruise

A familiar start to the new year with a cruise around some of the 'cool spots' of Shropshire. Where the shire is concerned, caution where the term 'hotspot' is advised! A 7.30 start, teaming up with Yvonne and Venus Pool first stop....

A dependable location for a kick start to the local year and 47 species were duly ticked in a lazy first 90 minutes. Mostly 'usual suspects' so no long list to bore you. No real highlights, more about disappearing acts with the long staying Pintails having an away day (or just plain gone!). The two female Goldeneye were still loving the place! A single Brambling near the gate in the top field was the highlight of a subdued finch flock with plenty of Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting in evidence. Several Redwing and Fieldfare feeding in the meadow but where's a Song or Mistle Thrush when you need one! A single Brambling eventually gave itself up as we neared the car park and a Nuthatch there reminded us we hadn't ticked Treecreeper by the feeder station but a revisit put that to rights! With 47 species in the bag, we headed off, stopping a short way down the road for an obliging Goldcrest plus VP trickies - House Sparrow and Collared Dove!

One of the bogey birds of any bird race is Jay and in the next 30 minutes we had four individuals from the car plus the first Kestrel.
Shirlett was pretty quiet except for the occasional call of Crossbills and a group of 12 flew overhead to make the diversion here worthwhile.
Chelmarsh produced a few easy birds we needed: Bullfinch, Linnet, Meadow Pipit, Raven plus a pair of Green Woodpecker. Amongst the 1,000 + Lesser Black-backed Gulls were single figure figure Herring Gulls and a couple of 1w Great Black-backed Gulls. The tally now on 62....
After adding Red-legged Partridge en-route to Telford, Priorslee lake provided a few Pochard, fly over Stock Dove and then a single Yellow-legged Gull at the crem (thanks Kriss!)
The short day meant an extensive search in the North of the County was not an option and what a disaster the Mere proved to be with just Common Gull added. Nothing new was added at Wood Lane or Whixall floods so there we go.... 67 species to start the year. Could have done better but a pretty enjoyable day which wasn't the usual wash out it's been for the past couple of years!

Oh and congratulations to this Corncrake picked as the favourite from the December poll

Here's to a few more decent images during 2016 and wishing a brilliant years birding to you all!!