Saturday 17th March

And so for the fourth consecutive Saturday, we stayed in Staffordshire again. There was a rare full Clayhead turn out at Westport. We did manage two new Chiffchaffs, plus a cracking view of a Woodcock over the sewage works. Amazingly, this is now the third year in a row I've manage to see Woodcock at Westport - no longer a Westport mega?


Woodcock in flight over Westport - photoshopped by PJ

Then the twitching began, we made a rare visit to the barbed wire mecca that is Berryhill. True to form we did end up in a paddock with no way out, and one member did get his foot stuck in between two strands of the finest wire. The reason for our visit was a 1w male Ring Ouzel had been found, my earliest one in Britain by nine days. We also saw three Wheatears. Spring is slowly sprunging into life.


PJ did very well to get this shot as the ROuzel was quite distant.

We bade farewell to PJ and headed off south. First stop was a brief visit to the Chase. Its still rather quiet on there, and we only saw a few species in total. Then it was on to the pits. And yes, more pictures of the White-fronted Goose. There were a few waders still around, including a Black-tailed Godwit. We also had a site tick - a Stonechat!





More pictures of the immature WFGoose.


Bird of the day (not quite) - a Branston GP tick