Brightside Birding: Chasewater, Saturday 19th January

Choosing to take our chances against the rain and flooding that has blighted the Midlands over the past week we headed off to Chasewater yesterday morning. The main aim was to tick the Slavonian Grebe, which has been around for the last few weeks. Walking along the East side of the reservoir we soon had one of the two Great Northern Divers giving great views about 20ft from the shore, I never tire of these birds. Also two Kingfishers showed frequently.

Great Northern Diver by Steve Seal http://stevesealbirdingimages.fotopic.net/

Up by Jeffrey’s Swag, we found a feeding flock of Siskin and Lesser Redpoll (both year ticks), which was really nice. Also many Long Tailed Tits. We then had two Kestrels and a Green Woodpecker (year tick) whilst walking over the heathland. It was a mission to find a dry way round to the bay and Sailing Club to look for the Slav Grebe; there was no ‘dry way’ and our route involved wading over the flooded boardwalk, which was 7inches under! Thankfully I had my wellies on, so it was ok, if a little scary. Max on the other hand had not been so sensible and ended up with boots full of water!

We ended up walking a little bit too far round for the Grebe and looking over the Dam for it, when luckily we met a chap called Graham who runs the excellent Chasewater website (http://www.chasewater.org.uk/) - he put us right and gave us a lift back round to the right place…..where the Slavonian Grebe was right in front of us (lifer). Spent some time admiring this bird then we went with Graham to check for Med Gulls on the jetty. There was a fine adult Med Gull there amongst the many Black Headed Gulls and few Common Gulls. A very welcome year tick - one of my favourite gulls.