Monday, November 04, 2013

Ogden

I tried in vain all afternoon searching for the Firecrest ! Everything was so quiet around the res'r that I even tried some of the woodland areas searching for the 'tit' flock. I only found an od Chaffinch and a few Blue and Great Tits.
Then right on dusk, 16.15, I came across 'the flock' near the bridge at the lower end of Ogden Clough - Blue, Great, Coal and L T Tits, Robins, Dunnock, Wrens, 2 Treecreepers, Bullfinch and 15 + Goldcrests. The fading light made it almost impossible with the Goldcrests to find anything different as they were all feeding up in the Sycamores (still with leaves on) and  nearly all silhouetted - so finding a Firecrest was almost impossible.
The flock was also surprisingly quiet so calls were not much help either.

I guess that if the flock could be located in good light then there might be a reasonable chance of re-finding the Firecrest ?? I know several other local birders (NK, BH, PS et al) also checked the site am and pm without success but lets hope between us we can re-locate the bird in the next few days !

Good to meet up with Bruce and Emma and thanks for pointing out the very, very rare fungus - forgotten what it's called if you can remind me Bruce !

2 comments:

Bruce said...

Hi David

Hats off for persistence David. We had a group of Coal and Blue tits and they were all eliminated as no Goldcrest were seen.

The fungus is Pithya vulgaris. This is the only site in the UK. See http://alisons-fungi-diary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/fir-disco-pithya-vulgaris-ogden-water.html

David Sutcliffe said...

Thanks for the link Bruce, quite amazing and fantastic to get it confirmed by others and Kew. What will you find next?!