Gloucestershire Birding (1 Viewer)

[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 and Ashleworth Wetland nothing rare etc, just the usual waterfowl. I did however find a Green Sandpiper @ 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

 

[Brian Stretch]

Pomarine Skua at Beachley

Pictures of this superb bird can be seen here:
http://www.birdingtoday.co.uk/pomarine_skua_beachley_gloucestershire_71.html

Brian
____________________________
www.birdingtoday.co.uk
www.worcesterbirding.co.uk
www.uptonwarrenbirding.co.uk
www.westmidlandsbirding.co.uk

 

[luke]

Had the chance to a couple of hours birding today so decided to get a few tricky year ticks out of the way and went to the Forest of Dean. I was going to try around speech house for Hawfinch but decided to head over to Brierley instead. I remember this site being reasonable for Willow tit which is getting harder every year. I am glad i went there as within 10 minutes i had a good views of a Hawfinch in a tree and then it took off with a further five birds. I then turned my attention to Willow tit. I though i had seen one with a large tit flock which contained a number of Marsh tit but that was all i could hear. After an hour or so of searching i eventually heard one calling in a Larch. a couple of minutes later it showed well.

After my sucess there i went down to Boys Grave to add Crossbill to the year list and that was really easy. i hardly had to leave the carpark.

 

[StarainBoy]

A trip to Slimbridge and a Short-Eared Owl at Aust.

 

[wolfbirder]

Forest of Dean today weather highly variable- 3 Hawfinches at Speech house at 9am then about 8 more below Parkend church. At New Fancy view I think it was still a bit cold for Goshawks, tho saw about 4 over the day, displaying intermittantly but as usual never really came close. Also Peregrine and a few Buzzards and Ravens as usual. Nice views of Crossbills as well. Quite a few Redwings still by Speech House. 6 Mandarins and 2 Goosander at Cannop Ponds, also Nuthatch. 2 Siskins at Brierley.

 

[Rockbirder]

Hey up folks, i've got to kill a few hours around Tetbury tomorrow afternoon. I was thinkin' of havin' a look at Cotswold Water Park. Is there anywhere I should try in particular?

Cheers

Andy.