Saturday 11th February 2012

  First real chance to do some birding after my Sri Lankan holiday, went out to Chew to see if there was anything new about. Before i left there were a few things around, Spotted Sandpiper, Yellow-browed Warbler and a female Garganey (odd) were the best ones. So lets have a look!!!
  Got to Herriotts pool, where a Smew had been reported on the pool itself. Saw Gareth Jones near the bridge over the channel, so had a look there first. There was the female Smew, showing really well in the channel.

Smew (Duck)

  After that, while our luck was in, went around to Stratford to look for the Yellow-browed Warbler. Took a while, but finally got it feeding in the cut reeds, odd for YB Warbler. It was working its way towards us, so i got the camera ready. It then decided to fly off, it flew in front of the hide, so we all went in, and found it in the little reedbed on the far side of the pool in front of the hide. It showed well, in good light, but anyone who knows where the bird was knows, thats a little bit too far for decent pix of a bird that small!! So, i was quite happy to get the shot below.

Yellow-browed Warbler

  Not a bad first trip out, lets see how long that luck continues though!!!

  If anyone reads this blog and wonders where my Sri Lankan pix are, here is a sort of answer. We saw approx. 250 species of bird on the 2 week trip. Very good! But, i photographed 190+ of them. Even better! So, sadly will take a while to sort them all out. I will sort out a 'Best Of', and add them asap.