Today I paid a visit to West Midlands Bird Club Reserve at Belvide, some 5 miles over the border in to Staffordshire. Access to the Reserve is strictly by permit only with all access gates and hides requiring key-codes to access. Information about the sightings here and Belvide Reservoir itself can be found
here.
One of the reasons to visit at the moment – a Red-necked Grebe. None too easy to see in the UK, especially inland: this bird has been present since before the New Year. Rather distant here though we can see all the key features: slightly smaller than a Great Crested Grebe; always with a dark neck – more dusky than red in winter; with an obviously yellow bill.
A nice group of ducks: from the left drake Wigeon; drake Pochard (foreground); duck Wigeon; drake Mallard; another drake Pochard.
Three drake and two duck Wigeon.
Goldeneye is not too easy to see wintering in the Telford area – the Ellesmere lakes are the most reliable. Here a fine drake.
And a duck. The head-shape is very distinctive and these birds can be recognised at long range by their shape alone.
Something I cannot recall having seen too often: Cormorants displaying.
They were quite noisy too.
A quick cuddle? The more adult bird on the left looks a bit concerned. The bird on the right is an immature showing much brown in the plumage, but strangely little white on the belly.
A fine-looking Grey Heron. An immature – an adult would have a white forehead; and there would be no contrast between the mantle and wing feathers.
A contrasting pair: a Little Egret on the left; an adult winter Lesser Black-backed Gull on the right, this bird showing a lot of head-streaking: some do in winter.
The Little Egret wandered across the bund to show off its yellow feet.
Lapwing were typically flighty: here a group come back to land.
And one in close-up.
At the SOS reserve at Venus Pool I am used to see majestic male Pheasants. This shows the females are rather splendid too.
A different bird.
And here a very pale female with a rather strange male. Usually known as Common Pheasant or just Pheasant an older name is Ring-necked Pheasant because males show a white collar. Not this bird though. Neither does it show much of the red wattle behind the eye, the smudge we can see perhaps indicates that it is an immature still to acquire a wattle. On the other hand pheasants have been bred and cross-bred for shooting and the cage bird trade, so perhaps it is just a hybrid.
Another view of him.
A bird that is increasingly hard to see – Tree Sparrow. 20 years ago there were feeders outside former farm cottages a few miles outside Newport where this species could be seen. When the residents moved there was no more food and I have seen none locally for many years.
Unlike House Sparrows both males and females of this species look identical with rufous crown and black cheek mark.
(Ed Wilson)
