Pied Flycatcher

My highlight this weekend has to be the Pied Flycatcher at Croft Hill. I had been over to Brascote early morning and just before I set off back home I checked my phone and noticed I'd missed a message from Adey Baker. I hadn't realised he was back from his holiday, so I texted him to say I had gone to Brascote. Shortly after he texted back saying he was on Croft Hill and he'd had a brief view of what looked like a Pied Flycatcher. Soon he messaged me again and this time he said he'd got a photo and it was a Pied Flycatcher.

My plans for the morning had altered and I headed to Croft. It took us quite a while to relocate it, but the time was well spent as we also found a family of Spotted Flycatchers.

'Female Type' Pied Flycatcher Croft Hill

Juvenile Spotted Flycatcher, Croft Hill

Croft Hill is one of the best sites to find Pied Flycatchers in Leicestershire. Pied Flickers are scarce migrants in the county. Below are the most recent records from the site:

2004: a male on April 24th (CDB, ABa). 

2008: a male on April 18th (DT), plus two females/immatures during September: one from 8th to 10th (NWH et al) and another on the 27th (ABa, CDB).

2012: a female/immature on September 2nd (ABa).

2015: single females/immatures on August 7th (CDB, ABa, RBa) and August 16th (CDB, ABa).

2016: a single female/immature on August 21st (CDB, ABa, DT).

2017: a single female/immature on July 30th (ABa, CDB)

Weekend Report

Saturday was a good day. It started with me finding a pair of Barn Owls in a barn that I have been checking for about 30 years. I've seen pellets occasionally but it was great to see a couple of owls in there. At Shawell the Red Kite invasion had increased to 17 birds.

Red Kite

As well as the tricky gull in the previous post I saw a couple of Caspian Gulls and many Yellow-legged Gulls. Amongst the Yellow-legged Gulls were five smart juveniles.

Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull

Can You Spot the Caspian Gull?

On Sunday I was at Brascote Pits in the morning and three juvenile Common Terns were there and when they landed on the shore I checked for colour rings and surprisingly they were all ringed. Each one had a yellow colour ring - U24, U25 and U26. These 3 juvs were rung on the same raft on Meadow lake at Watermead Country Park on 27/6/17.

Juvenile Common Tern

The Shelduck brood were doing well, as were the three young Oystercatchers.

Adult and Young Ostercatcher

Gulls at Last

I have only just started to get good views of the gulls again at Shawell. The tip face had been moved too far away to view and the disturbance from the dog walker has been bad at the lagoons. He is still causing problems, as management haven't caught him yet.

Anyway the last few weeks have been better since the tip area is now closer to the road, but still a little too far away. At least I'm reading some colour-rings again. The bulk of these ringed gulls are intermedius Lesser Black-backed Gulls, which may be a surprise as at one time we thought of these dark mantled gulls as winter visitors.

Amongst the horde of LBBG are a few Yellow-legged Gulls including some juveniles and I've had a couple of first-summer Caspian Gulls this week as well - one today and one on Thursday.

First-Summer Caspian Gull

The highlight at present, however, is the gathering of Red Kites. Fifteen were there today including two pristine juveniles.

Juvenile Red Kite

Red Kites, Gulls and Dragons

At the weekend I did the rounds checking the progress of several breeding birds. The gulls seemed to be doing OK on their new roof at Scudamore Road, Leicester and I am pretty sure that a few pairs of Lesser Black-backed Gulls and one pair of Herring Gulls are nesting at Troon Industrial Estate, Leicester. The young Red Kites I'm keeping an eye on are almost ready to fledge and the young Oystercatchers are growing night and day. Initially the Oystercatchers proved difficult to find, but then all of a sudden one swam out from underneath some vegetation at the side of the lake.

Oystercatcher Chick

At Cotesbach it was great to see that there was still ten Red Kites scavenging for any food they could find on the tip.

Red Kite

There are a couple of new ponds by the landfill site, which didn't take dragonflies long to discover. At least four Emperors were present including this ovipositing female.

Emperor Dragonfly

There were plenty of gulls at the landfill and I managed to read some colour-rings for a change - most were from Norway.

News From SW Leics

My corner of Leicestershire is often ignored as a birding location. Well things are going quite well this year especially with locally rare breeding birds. At Brascote Pits a pair of Oystercatchers have three chicks and the Shelducks have five well grown ducklings. Neither of these two species breed successfully every year in south-west Leicestershire.

A respectable number of schedule 1 breeding birds have bred in the area this year including the first pair of Red Kites.

I had to travel to deepest darkest Wales to see Red Kites when I was a lad and back then no one expected to one day see one in Leicestershire. Well yesterday I stood enthralled as I watched 14 in the air together in south-west Leicestershire. Eight of them alighted in the same dead tree - how things change!

Red Kite

Whilst I was out yesterday I bumped into Neil Hagley who told me he'd seen some White-letter Hairstreaks at Croft/Huncote. It had been a few years since I last saw White-letter Hairstreaks there, so it was good to know they had survived. Adey Baker and I went to look for them this morning and luck was on our side. Two were nectaring on bramble flowers. The one that I photographed had its head hidden from my position, but at least I got a record shot. From the Huncote end of Croft Quarry you need to park by the metal gates and turn right as you go through the gate. walk uphill and stop just past the double telegraph poles. There is an obvious bramble bush with pinkish flowers and this was where we saw them.

White-letter Hairstreak, Croft Quarry