Earlswood all-dayer - Spring 2019

A total of 64 bird species were recorded at Earlswood during the West Midlands spring all-day birdwatch yesterday. When putting this into context with our previous spring all-dayer totals, it's interesting to note that, with one exception, we seem to have a tendency to record a very similar number of 64-65 species each year! Previous totals as follows:
2018 - 64 spp.
2017 - 65 spp.
2016 - 77 spp.
2015 - 65 spp.

The weather conditions yesterday weren't great for migration at this time of year really, with a cool northerly wind, and apart from good numbers of hirundines at the lakes there appeared to be few other new arrivals. The most notable birds reported were Lesser Whitethroat, Cuckoo, Raven, Skylark and Common Sandpiper. All of the resident species were recorded, but amongst the visitors that weren't, Common Tern was the most surprising. The full bird list in alphabetical order was as follows:

1. Black-headed Gull
2. Blackbird
3. Blackcap
4. Blue Tit
5. Bullfinch
6. Buzzard
7. Canada Goose
8. Carrion Crow
9. Chaffinch
10. Chiffchaff
11. Coal Tit
12. Collared Dove
13. Common Sandpiper
14. Coot
15. Cuckoo
16. Dunnock
17. Feral Pigeon
18. Goldcrest
19. Goldfinch
20. Great Crested Grebe
21. Great Spotted Woodpecker
22. Great Tit
23. Green Woodpecker
24. Greenfinch
25. Grey Heron
26. Grey Wagtail
27. Greylag Goose
28. Herring Gull
29. House Martin
30. House Sparrow
31. Jackdaw
32. Jay
33. Kestrel
34. Lesser Black-backed Gull
35. Lesser Whitethroat
36. Linnet
37. Long-tailed Tit
38. Magpie
39. Mallard
40. Marsh Tit
41. Mistle Thrush
42. Moorhen
43. Mute Swan
44. Nuthatch
45. Pheasant
46. Pied Wagtail
47. Raven
48. Reed Bunting
49. Robin
50. Sand Martin
51. Skylark
52. Song Thrush
53. Sparrowhawk
54. Starling
55. Stock Dove
56. Swallow
57. Swift
58. Tawny Owl
59. Treecreeper
60. Tufted Duck
61. Whitethroat
62. Willow Warbler
63. Woodpigeon
64. Wren

Three of the team including myself went for drinks at the Red Lion, and I wonder if others might be interested in doing this at a local pub in future all-dayers? For me as a lightweight, a couple of pints meant that birding for a couple of hours afterwards was, erm, interesting but at least now I know Rosie's Pig and Doom Bar taste good! 😁 Here's a few members of Team Earlswood at the causeway!

Left to right: John B, Janet, Jim, John S, Jon C

Earlswood came 15th out of a record total of 23 sites across the midlands that participated, which was pretty good considering most of the patches with better scores are managed nature reserves or gravel pits. Sites and species totals for the day as follows:
  1. Ladywalk - 102
  2. Middleton Lakes - 97
  3. Branston GP - 91
  4. Brandon Marsh - 90
=5. Belvide - 89
=5. Grimley - 89
=7. Upton Warren - 84
=7. Chasewater - 84
=7. Salford Priors GP - 84
=7. Sandwell Valley - 84
 11. Marsh Lane - 82
 12. Doxey Marsh - 70
 13. Venus Pool - 69
 14. Dairy Farm NR - 65
 15. Earlswood - 64
 16. Morton Bagot - 63
 17. Elmdon Park - 60
 18. Avon Meadows - 58
 19. Halesowen patches - 57
 20. Edgbaston Res - 55
 21. Sutton Park - 51
 22. Fens Pool / Saltwells - 50
 23. Trittiford - 47

My thanks to John Sirrett for collating the bird species reported at Earlswood over the course of the day, to Phil Andrews for collating the site totals for the all-dayer overall, and to the following 11 birders who made up the rest of Team Earlswood this spring: John Bishop, Jon Chidwick, Barry Durman, Paul Fitzgerald, Yvonne Heward, Janet James, Mike Jeeves, John Oates, Joe Owen, John Sirrett and Jim Winsper. The next all-dayer in the autumn will probably be in early September.