Birdseekers just out of county trip -- May 2006

Trip Report by Neil Glenn

It had to happen. By the law of averages, it had to happen. If enough trips are organised then the Law of Sod clearly states that at least one of those trips will end in tears and this was to be that trip.

Things started to go wrong a week before the outing when I phoned to confirm my minibus booking with the usual firm. To cut a long story short, they had vanished from the face of the earth leaving clients, bailiffs and the police in their wake. Fortunately, I never gave them money up front so I suppose we were luckier than some in that respect

I finally found another company with a van available for that weekend, though I could not collect it until Sunday morning at 9.00am as it was already booked for Saturday. This meant a very late start for a Birdseekers’ trip but there was nothing I could do.

Upon my arrival at said company at 9.00am on the 14^th, there was no sign of the minibus. I dutifully filled out all the forms while I was waiting and had just completed them when a couple of chavs piled into the office and casually informed us that they had smashed the back window of the minibus during their rental, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do! Charming lads: it’s people like this that make England what it is today.

The company said I could take the van as it was (I don’t think so!) or hire two MPVs instead. Due to the cost and hassle of finding another driver I had no option but to cancel. As you can imagine, I was not a happy birdseeker by this point and there was the problem of fourteen people waiting to be picked up!

To cut another long story short, eleven of the group decide on a spot of local birding and Attenborough NR is the chosen destination. To put the icing on the cake of a disappointing day, it starts to rain as we pull up in the car park.

Not to be deterred, we head towards the Erewash Fields. There are thousands of hirundines swooping over the lake giving very close views at times. An Oystercatcher is also seen on one of the islands. As we reach the canal, a Kingfisher zips past and disappears before most see it.

The bushes around the bridge produce superb views of a Lesser Whitethroat. It isn’t often that one is able to study this species through a telescope but this individual duly obliges

We cross into Derbyshire (who said this wasn’t an out–of–county trip?!) in search of Grasshopper Warblers. A slow walk across the field fails to provide us with any sight or sound of this skulking species but a Sky Lark poses nicely for us.

At the end of the field, we head onto the river path. We find it hard to believe it was necessary to create an eight metre wide, gravelled track here, destroying lots of good warbler habitat in the process!

We reach the new hide and scan Clifton Pond. It is very quiet so we turn our attention to the Tree Sparrows on the feeder instead. Next port of call is the ‘new’ scrape where we search the muddy edges for Little Ringed Plovers. After several scans and just as we are about to give up, an LRP appears as if out of nowhere and shows well

After a quick stop for sandwiches in the car park we continue our stroll. The sun puts in a welcome appearance for us too. Works Pond produces a couple of Shelduck but no waders or the hoped–for Yellow-legged Gull. We reach the Delta Wood and settle down to wait for a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. One or two Great Spots show well along with several common woodland birds but no Lessers come in to view.

We turn back towards the bund and head for the River Trent. There are many Common Terns on Main Pond as well as Cormorants and Great Crested Grebes but not much else.

As we amble along the river path, we see a couple of Buzzards across the water and hear a few Reed Warblers. The day ends with us having seen just 61 species. As one philosophical birder put it, the lack of a minibus was fate: if we had set off we would have been involved in a pile up or some such disaster. I suppose that’s one way of looking at things!

SPECIES DEFINITELY IDENTIFIED

MAMMALS