Gloucestershire Birding

[Lewis 1980]

Well I cant find a thread for our noble and kingly county and seeing as we have the second largest tidal Estury on the Panet and Slimbridge WWT I am gobsmacked...! :brains:

Anyway

Spent all morning at both Coombe Hill Nature Reserve (http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Coombe_Hill_Nature_Reserve)and Ashleworth Wetland (http://www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk/index.php?section=places:reserves&reserveid=92) nothing rare etc, just the usual waterfowl. I did however find a Green Sandpiper (http://www.birdguides.com/species/species.asp?sp=057021)@ Coombe Hill. Word of note, if you are planning to visit Coombe Hill you MUST take wellies IMHO.

Does anyone know of other good birding sites locally to Cheltenham?

P.S.
I went into Bishops Cleeve to try and spot the Med Gull (shown on RBA) but found nothing. My Stag weekend starts too so I wont be able to catch the Waxwing also showing as being in Cheltenham. I work in town though so will take my 8x32's in on Monday.

Lew

Appoolloogies for my spellling..;)

[Glosbirder]

Lewis 1980,

I, too, despair of the lack of many Glos threads on here but perhaps that due to the excellent Gloster Birder site.

Perhaps we should take matters into our own hands?

[Lewis 1980]

Ah, it is indeed a good site.. However, we have our fingers in the global pie here at BirdForum ;-)

[luke]

i wondered how long it would take for a gloucestershire thread. I've seen some great birds in gloucestershire, sadly you guys get alot than your neighbour (gwent).

[luke]

Had a Great Day in the Forest of Dean yesturday with the highlights being a Hawfinch feeding in the car park of the Arboretum just down the road from Speech house, a Great Grey Shrike at Boys Grave and a few Goshawk at New fancy, also got about 20 Mandarin at Cannop Ponds.

It would be good to see this thread up and running again as theres so much good birding on offer in Gloucestershire and would be great to hear about more of it!
Theres been an American Wigeon at Slimbridge recently along with iceland and glaucous gull and 6 bean geese.

[Johnny Allan]

Hi there,

I'm trying to find out which Counties still use the Watsonian Vice County system to record birds in and which go by whatever the political boundary may change to (and why).

The Watsonian Vice County system was set to accurately record and compare historical and modern data and it seems that there can be/is confusion when some counties no longer use this system whilst others do. Does anyone in your county have a view on this ? Discussion here if anyone has a comment:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=142074

ps this is not about getting more or less county ticks, more a question about uniformity in recording.

Johnny Allan