I planned to take it all a bit easy on this Sunday morning as it had been quite a day in the North Wales moors on Saturday. I found out that we had a painter coming to do some work after our kitchen refurb and he was due to arrive by 9.00am - I grabbed some breakfast and retired out of the way, awaiting his arrival. As I was eating breakfast, I had a message from Kevin Heath (@kev07713) to say that he and his wife Karen (@karenheath62) had decided to head over to the Wyre Forest to find some wood warblers and hopefully tree pipits for their year lists. I passed on a map with a pin drop to show where they should park and had a shower - they had invited me to join them but I had developed a bit of a sniffle and declined so as not to pass it on. When dressed I realised that things were going to get complicated and that I may get into a position where I wouldn't visit with wood warblers showing - I jumped in my car and followed them.
I arrived and called Kev to see where they were. Apparently, they weren't far ahead and were watching a wood warbler - I could hear it from the car park! I set out and caught up with them.
We'd been watching the same bird flying around for 5-10 minutes so decided to give it some space and make our way further along the path and to where we were also likely to find pied flycatchers. On the way we could hear willow and wood warblers calling, saw a distant common restart and found a pair of jays in the trees immediately beside the path. A common lizard skurried away from the bank – more would be seen along the path as we went.
We stopped to chat to a chap who was standing trained on a fallen tree, apparently waiting on a male redstart to return - he was standing right out in the open which hopefully would spoil his chances; we wished him luck and moved on. Kev and Karen reached the high ground looking over a valley and started canning for pied flycatchers. I hung back and followed a wood warbler calling constantly alongside the path. After a few attempts at photos the bird sat nicely in view, and I snapped away.
Again, it was time to move off and so I caught up with Kev and Karen and dropped down into the valley - Kev had heard calls from pied flycatcher but was yet to see one. It wasn't long until one appeared on top of one of the nesting boxes. It was distant but soon the bird moved a bit closer, and I was able to get some photos that I could crop to better effect. We were surprised at quite how few birds there were as usually we have had a handful along the path and in this valley - perhaps we are a couple of weeks later and the birds are all on eggs - difficult to time perfectly for best views of both pied flycatchers and wood warbler perhaps?
Despite waiting we were unable to see further pied flycatchers and so decided to move on and drop down to the Dowles Brook and to see if we could see redstart and dippers. We turned west along the brook and found the going hard with significant amounts of mud and water along the path - when we reached the spot we'd found nesting redstarts the previous year, we stopped and waited. A few walkers squelched through but we never heard or saw any restarts here and so retraced our steps, then continuing along the brook. We reached a bridge across the brook and caught sight of a dipper flying away from us - a tick but only a brief sighting - we waited. Scanning ahead Kev picked out a juvenile dipper hiding in the fallen tree on the corner, and we thought perhaps that the adults would return to feed it. After a while this seemed to be a wish rather than a likely event, at least in the time we had. We prepared to leave and just at that point a dipper dropped onto a rock quite close ahead - great views and Karen was pleased as it was a lifer for her.
We stopped for a coffee at the Education Centre, sitting on the picnic bench on the banks of the brook. We could hear redstarts but not see them. A marsh tit flew through.
We pushed on, back up out the valley and were again disappointed not to see any more pied flycatchers in their nesting box area - wrong time of day?? … Back through the woods, across the footbridge spanning the path we'd come up from the car park on, and into the trees beyond. Kev heard a tree pit high in the canopy and soon we found it as it parachuted down onto a lower branch - a year tick for us all and another lifer for Karen. It showed well in the tree above us and then dropped away and onto the grass, hopping into the longer grass and lost from view.
My mobile 'phone rang and it was my wife to say she'd had a call from my mum to say she'd had a fall - nothing I could do but get hold of my brother who was playing golf to go and assist - my 'phone signal had been at zero for some time in the foot of the valley and so my wife had convinced her that calling an ambulance would be the sensible thing to do. I bid my farewells and set off home to await news. Paramedics attended and thankfully there appeared to be nothing broken but she was very sore and would likely be in pain for some time to come.
I left Kev and Karen who added more tree pipits, redstarts, and spotted flycatchers before they also made their way home.
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