Somerset.... mainly Ham Wall RSPB

 So still catching up with stuff from June! We booked a week in Somerset in between visits to Birmingham. Ham Wall is one of our favourite reserves in the UK, mind you we do have lots of favourites 😂

Ham Wall:

Marsh Harrier

Dragonfly, not sure of species,

Growing up fast! A young Great Crested Grebe,

Great White Egret,

Broad-bodied Chaser,

Glastonbury Tor,

Dragonfly (species?),

At Westhay Moor, Great Crested Grebe, with chicks,

Dad bringing lunch home 

that was way too big! Eventually 'mom' had to eat it

Marsh Harrier back at Ham Wall,

Tufted Duck,

Little Grebe with two youngsters,

Merlin!

Black-tailed Skimmer (female),

Swans on one of the channels.

Black-tailed Skimmer (male),

Plenty of female Mallard, theres a few Gadwall in there too.

Grey Heron,

Mallard young at Chew Valley.

Gatekeeper Butterfly,

Common Blue Damselfly,

Broad-bodied Chaser,

Little Egret,

and a very distant blurred shot of a Bittern! We had quite a few Bittern sightings at Ham Wall but this is the only photo that is vaguely identifiable 😌

Monday at RSPB Ham Wall

With most of our local reserves still closed and being huge fans of Ham Wall, which is open, we decided to take advantage of the last of the good weather and go for a drive down.

We had a fabulous day, we arrived about 12:30 so not the best time of day for the heat but you have to do what you have to do!

We parked in the RSPB car park and walked slowly to the first platform and were rewarded very quickly with a Bittern flying over the reeds, it was fairly distant, so I didn't bother take any snaps, just watched and enjoyed. You don't get one of those down Old Hill Canal!

There were plenty of Egrets about, both Great White and Little...

So With hides and screens closed we wandered around and made the best of what presented itself;
Willow Warbler,

 Marsh Harrier,

 Hobby,

 Mute Swan with Cygnets,

 Damselflies,

 Cygnet,

 Whitethroat,

 Dragonflies,

Very distant Cuckoo!

It was a lovely day, we had a great chat with Paul a chap from Costa Rica, but originally from Rotherham! Who is stuck here and can't get home. We chatted about Costa Rica as we were there a few years back and various other things, it all felt quite normal. With social distancing rules of course.
I have now added his blog to those we follow, on the right hand menus. But if you can't see it go to: https://birdsforbeer.com/ for some great photos of what you can see over there and more.

We saw a total of 41 species at Ham Wall and our year list crawled up to 113.

RSPB Ham Wall Starlings

Been quite busy since the turn of the year, we started our birding year on New Years day with a local patch walk around Haden Hill Park and Corngreaves NR. It was a quietish day with very little activity at first, other than a Jay posing well at the lower pool.

We then had a flurry of activity with Long-tailed, Blue and Great Tits, with the start a single Goldcrest among them. Nice start to 2019! This was followed by Nuthatches calling to one another, in the end we counted I think 5 all within 100 feet of each other.
That was about it though apart from the usual parkland birds, although a Buzzard did put in an appearance late on.

Anyway on to the title of this post, last Thursday Tina suggested we head down to Ham Wall to see the Starling Murmuration as we had seen good reports on social media. It is a two and a half hour drive almost, but hey ho!

The weather was surprisingly sunny, which made for some nice photos (I think!)

 Little Egret,

 Great White Egret,

 Snipe,

 Teal,

 Tufted Duck,

 Aggressive Coot,

 Shoveler,

 Long-tailed Tit,

 Marsh Harrier,

 Gadwall,

 performing Shoveler,

 another smart Gadwall,

 Great Crested Grebe,

 Teal and Snipe.

 The sunset was magnificent.

So onto the Starlings, well they started showing up about 16:15 in at first very separate flocks,

but as the different groups started arriving, they decided that they were too tired to join up and murmurate (is that a word?) a great deal, after a a few quick murmurs, they decided to drop into the reed beds right in front of us:

 A Starling Bush!

They just kept coming for at least 30 minutes, the RSPB estimate was half a million birds!

It was truly amazing, then just as the numbers arriving started to calm down, they proceeded to leave the bed in front of us and relocate over the Tor View Hide, (the noise of the mass lift off us was fantastic), and settle in the reeds on the other side. Again it took at least half an hour for them all to move, by which time it was well and truly dark, so it was time to go home.

A couple of video clips:
The Starlings going down;

Relocating at low level!