On Saturday lunchtime my wife and I were very fortunate to be hosted by a friend having a special birthday. We lunched at Kilworth House and watched Carousel at the outdoor theatre. This postponed any birding until Sunday.
So early on Sunday morning I met up with Kevin Heath and set out to see the great reed warbler at RSPB Langford Lowfields, just north of Newark-on-Trent. Kev had been there earlier in the week with Dave South and had good views but didn't mind a second go.
Langford Lowfields is a flagship partnership project involving the RSPB and Tarmac, showcasing wetland habitat creation on a large scale. A thriving reedbed sits at the heart of this expanding reserve, with highlights including bitterns - Kev had seen a couple on his previous visit.
We walked through the wood to the Beach Hut and right to the patch of reeds being favoured. We'd encountered great-spotted woodpecker, large numbers of garden warblers, sedge and Cetti's warblers, and song thrush on the way.
It took only 20 minutes or so for the great reed warbler to show - and boy did it! Almost oblivious to our presence it fed on insects, mostly caterpillars, climbing the reeds into view on a number of occasions - one onlooker complaining that it did so just after the sun was obscured by clouds - oh how greedy we are! The views and song were stunning - the onlookers soaking up the show.
Having bagged our bird and sure I had a photo, we tried to decide what to do next - try and find the red knot locally or head to the Welbeck Raptor Point and make an attempt at honey buzzard. Welbeck won. We arrived and hooked up with a birder already in residence, chatting as the morning passed. We spotted numbers of common buzzards, a couple of hobbies and a red kite but not the target bird.
Then we saw a couple of birds through our scopes which were different to before - one made its way along the distant treeline and was mobbed by the rooks there. That was our bird but way too distant for a proper photo and only really visible with bins and scopes. We watched for the remainder of the morning but had no better views and decided to head up to the tearooms at the end of the road. We stopped at the car park halfway between and talked to some birders stationed there - they confirmed a honey buzzard sighting at the same time we had picked out our bird and it appeared they had benefited from better views - perhaps this car park is a better place to view from?
We stopped at the tea rooms for lunch and made our way home after a successful twitch - this is getting to be a habit!
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