Belvide NR - A Quiet Day

 We made our second visit to Belvide on Thursday, the weather stayed mostly kind to us. We had a good walk visiting all the hides on the outward leg, then just using benches on the return leg. It was as the title of the post suggests a very quiet afternoon, with nothing out of the ordinary. I looked long and hard for the reported Dunlin and Common Sandpipers but couldn't find them. Also there was no sign of the alleged Whinchats on the west track. That's birding for you! Hope we have better luck in the highlands next week!

First though were a couple of Hares chilling out in a field behind the trees.

A young Lesser Black-backed Gull wanting food, but the adults having none of it!

Loads of Geese about Canadas and Greylags.

Greylags on approach and cleared to land!

Along with a Bar-headed Goose, an escapee I presume.

A Juvenile Garden Warbler and

one of its parents.

Some awesome looking fungi!

The finally a troop of circa 30 Long-tailed Tits put in an appearance, one finally sat still just long enough to get a photo.

So a credible 32 bird species were seen, next stop the highlands, via Edinburgh.

National Trust - Croome Court

 We booked a slot for Croome Court for Monday just gone, just fancied paying a visit there as we hadn't been for a while. Even with the one way restrictions around the grounds it was still a good walk, especially in the heat we are having at the moment.

Birding wise it was very very quiet, the highlight being a Peregrine over the tea room picnic area at the end of the day. It made an attempt at taking a Swallow but that didn't come to anything, so it decided to climb and disappear into the haze. The lake just produced Mute Swan, Mallard and Moorhen, but was abundant with Damselflies and Dragonflies, I've even done some looking up and hopefully identified them correctly! Apologies if I haven't.

Vagrant Darter

Southern Migrant Hawker

and Blue-tailed Damselfly

So just a few more images from the day.................

Ladywalk NR - Our second visit

So after being away in Scotland, not birding (much!) we decided to pay our second visit to Ladywalk NR part of the Teme Valley Valley Wetlands area. With not being able to visit Upton Warren our regular haunt for the last 10 years, this is fast becoming our favourite reserve. It's just a beautiful and peaceful place, despite being virtually next door to a massive Sainsbury's Distribution Centre.

I guess because it is a members only reserve and everyone that we encountered is sticking to the Covid advice, the hides can stay open, the WMBC trusts its members, Unlike Worcestershire Wildlife Trust.

Anyway I'll move on! As you would expect for August from a birding standpoint the reserve seems very quiet, although there were quite a few people about. Birdsong has almost gone completely with the majority of birds conserving their energy and building themselves back up for migration or the winter to come. Having said that there was plenty to see, not terribly exciting, but still good nonetheless with a total of 44 species seen.

There were of course plenty of butterflies about, I'll start with a few snaps of those:

A Small White,

Comma

and Peacock

there were of course others but butterflies like birds don't always sit still!

We had some mammals too;

A distant Muntjac from the first hide

and a Rabbit.

So on to the birds, as usual (well for a second visit!) the feeders at the first hide were busy, mainly with Blue and Great Tits, the youngsters particularly getting stuck in. The other main visitors were what seemed to be a family of Greenfinch, otherwise there was a quick visit by a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Nuthatch and two male Pheasant, one a juvenile.

Moving on we had a coffee in the second hide, but there wasn't much going on, so we carried on to the Riverside Walk Hide, where the waterfowl were much easier to see.

A family of Little Grebe with the adults feeding their Grebelets.

There were tons of Cormorant about with the majority chilling out on the scrapes.

A Female Tufted Duck was busy looking after her ducklings.

Other birds of note were a couple of fly by's by Little Egret, plenty of Lapwing and distant Sandpipers, which I guessed at the time were Green Sandpiper. One of the bushes to the right of the hide held plenty of Linnet and a few Starlings.

We carried on to the Bittern Hide for lunch (late as usual!), stopping at a bench overlooking the river on the way, where we had a lovely Kingfisher shoot by and watched the Canada Geese having a paddle;

At the Bittern Hide I managed some decent shots of the Green Sandpipers;

and a young Lapwing:

I couldn't resist another Cormorant shot;

The cute factor was supplied by a Gadwall with 7 ducklings:

Another youngster being looked after was a Great-crested Grebe although they refused to come close enough for a good photo;

So that's about it the walk around also produced some Reed Bunting, Juvenile Blackcap and a Willow Warbler, the end walk through the woods back to the car was very quiet, in fact we didn't see anything!

But 44 species and a lovely almost normal day out apart from the anti-bacterial gel and a great walk was well worth the 40 minute drive.