Some recent sightings from Dove Stone yesterday. Starting up at Binn Green on the feeders plenty of Blue, Great and Coal Tits as well as Chaffinches ground feeding. Also a Nuthatch and Great Spotted Woodpecker on the peanut feeders. Dropping down to Yeoman Hey, look out for Goldcrest in the plantations and Dipper and Grey Wagtail on the spillway that runs above the path.
Also yesterday views from here of a Buzzard being mobbed by a group of Carrion Crow from Bills o'Jacks plantation and over the Isle of Skye road. Worth mentioning once more that although Buzzards might seem a frequently seen, common bird nowadays that this is a bird for whom the destruction of nests and eggs has been granted a license by Natural England in order to counter the supposed impact on the pheasant population.
Moving on to Greenfield res - pretty quiet - just a whole load ( 150+ ) of Mallards. Bit of an emphasis on Dove Stone's water in this post as I started the BTO's wetland birds survey ( WeBS ) yesterday. WeBS records non-breeding waterbirds in the UK and its main aims are to identify population sizes, determine trends in numbers and distribution in order to identify important sites for waterbirds. For more info on the BTO's WeBS survey take a look at this link http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/webs/about
So. What do we expect of the reservoirs at Dove Stone ? Well, apart from Black Headed Gulls there's the possibility of Common Gulls and Lesser Black Backed Gulls or maybe even something more unusual such as a Little Gull - there's been one at Audenshaw res this week, so why not Dove Stone ? Little Gulls can be seen over wintering around coastal areas but clearly they visit inland water too. Or we may have Whooper Swans - last November we had a group passing through. And perhaps we might have Goosander - again, there's been previous records but not for a long time. The exciting thing is, you just don't know what's going to turn up. A Teal would be a welcome addition to the Dove Stone reserve bird list too ! For now, though, yesterday we had 30+ Black Headed Gulls on the main Dove Stone reservoir.
Following the main trail round, Canada Goose on the bottom end of Dove Stone res, Kestrel on the far side of the res, Grey Heron on Chew Brook, Reed Bunting in the Scots pine field above Chew Brook and plenty of the already mentioned Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit and Wren. Also seen yesterday were two Jays and a small group of Long Tailed Tits.
There have been some northern Long Tailed Tits recorded in Scotland recently and in previous years they have been recorded in West Yorkshire. We've records of other northern birds at Dove Stone such as Mealy Redpoll, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that we might have something like northern Long Tailed Tits, although it would be a rarity. Another example would be Two-barred Crossbill. This is a bird that's resident in Russia and overwinters in northern eurpope and Scandanavia but there have been records this year in Yorkshire. Worth keeping an eye out for ? Last one for now, slightly further afield, reports of a Snow Bunting over at Black Hill. Snow Buntings are winter visitors and generally birds of the high moor so feasible that there could be Snow Buntings seen on the moors above Dove Stone too.
More soon...