[The photo
to the left is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License and kindly taken from Notts Birders site http://www.nottsbirders.net/welbeck.php.]

Bank Holiday Monday, and three of us locals (that’s Jim, Dave and I) decided to take a trip out and about to find us some decent birds. With the weather looking good then we decided to try Welbeck Raptor Watchpoint. Jim is a bit of a raptor nut and Dave has bags of experience too so I was hoping to pick a few tips on how to ID these fantastic birds at a distance. Honey Buzzard was very much the target species, but with very few records coming from the area, and the time of year, then we acknowledged it might be a tall order.

I was driving, and being the only one who hadn’t visited the “watchpoint” before, was warned that I might drive straight past it without realising – so eyes peeled I was ready for anything – but still drove straight past it. For those who haven’t been it’s little more than a piece of grass where you can park the car at the side of the road. I’ve taken the above picture from the Notts Birders site, because I forgot to take one, but it shows the vista as seen from the “lay-by” (and I’m being kind describing it that).

We immediately upped scopes and started scanning for birds, but in the drive up the weather had gone from a light wind and bright sunshine to strong winds and cloud. Not as good as we hoped. For a while the birding was frustrating, and a GS Woodpecker calling, a kestrel on the wire and a Yellowhammer or two were the only birds we saw. However, slowly, the birds started to show.

To start with just a Common Buzzard (or Radio Bird as Jim calls them – from C.B.) or two were climbing in the distant trees, but they gave us something to check and were positive signs. Then a Hobby went left to right in front, and proceeded to hawk among the Hirundines gathering to our left, often soaring alongside them. Later a second bird showed itself, soaring across the lake in front of us from right to left. After that it was like the floodgates opened and, joined by a sheffield lad, we watched the woodpigeons that had often fooled us with their playing in the wind in the distance give way to at least four more “Radio Birds”. Over the period we probably had 6 birds, while not a great number at least it was a bit of decent birding. Add to that the flock of 10 waders that came across the top of us (South to North) in silhouette against the sky and we were in good spirits suddenly. Frustratingly the waders gave very little away about themselves, 2 large birds and 8 little ones, Jim being fairly confident the larger ones may be Ruffs but the best guess we had for the smaller birds were Redshank.

Chatting to the bloke from Sheffield it seemed that we might struggle with “pencil birds” (another Jim-ism for Honey Buzzard. Think about it…) at this site, and so we moved on to see what was available elsewhere. We drove further south and walked through the forest, getting a lovely pair of Linnet on the way, setting ourselves up in a clearing that offered a bit of potential. It would be difficult here, as it didn’t have the panorama but looked like there may be some decent birds fly through if we were lucky.

From this vantage point it proved harder, as expected, and aside from a few “radio birds”, a sprawk and a kestrel nothing much offered itself. Whether a too brief sighting of a *very* interesting looking raptor over the forest top was something we should have got excited about deserved it, we’ll never know, but we did get excited – certainly it was to prove to be the most exciting sighting of the day (if only to prove just how fast three not-so-young birders can move when they get a whiff of a decent bird disappearing behind trees!).

After a couple of hours back we went, stopping briefly to watch a mixed flock of passerines, including treecreeper, willow warber, mixed tits and a family party of Spotted Flycatcher. Cracking birds.

Our last stop was to be “Budby Pond” – near the Pumping Station. Dave has really pushed us to go, Jim and I had never heard of the site, but I’m glad he did as what a mixed bag it threw up. Very quickly we’d got all three common wagtails in the same view, five Chiff-chaff, c50 Sand Martins, a hunting Kingfisher, Shelduck as well as a variety of wildfowl and other birds. A decent end to the day that really upped our “daylist” from paltry to okay, ending up with a few less than 40 species in the day.

The news that “pencil birds” were on the move when we got back home was a little annoying, with one sighted over Loscoe Dam on its way to Erewash Meadows a tantalising glimpse of what we might have seen had we stayed local, the third bird in three weeks. And of course not to mention the Citrine Wagtail at Ogston (though that sounded elusive).

All in all an enjoyable days birding.