I joined a couple of ringers from Shropshire to walk around pastureland near Market Drayton in search of the birds. At first the 'usual' fields didn't look promising as no birds were seen, of the target species or otherwise. Eventually we caught up with two birds feeding together in the field. A few minutes later, the net was down and the bird was ringed, and what a stunner!
No sooner had we released the bird, Paul had found another a few hundred metres away. Boom, net down, bird number 2 in the bag. In all, we were out 'in the field' for 5 hours, checking 3 areas. We ended with 7 birds, along with a bonus jack snipe, a ringing tick for Paul.
On Saturday I was leading a walk at Croxall Lakes, a Staffordshire Wildlife Trust reserve in the east of the county, next to the National Memorial Arboretum. The walk was part of the programme of events being run buy the Tamworth local group. Winter hasn't really produced many birds yet but the reserve held several hundred ducks, including 86 pochard and similar numbers of tufted duck. Many teal and shoveler were present, along with a little egret, a few skylark passing overhead, a flock of around 500 lapwing and several hundred redwing and fieldfare feeding on the hawthorn berries along the railway line.
Find out more about the reserve here - http://www.staffs-wildlife.org.uk/reserves/croxall-lakes
Then on Saturday evening I was back at Belvide Reservoir with Brewood Ringers for another catch on the starling and reed bunting roost in the reedbed. The starling roost has gradually been building over the last week, but we weren't quite prepared for the estimated 5,000 birds that eventually came in to roost through several large flocks. In all, 43 birds were caught (including reed bunting).
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