Saturday November 26th

Alvecote Pools
Warks: Great White Egret on Gilman's Pool (Roy Smith).

Amington
Great White Egret, 1 south over at 1246hrs (Tom Perrins).

Middleton RSPB
Warks: A Short-eared Owl hunting in the South meadow with a Stonechat there. A Woodcock by the farm and ca.500 Golden Plovers on Jubilee (RSPB).
Staffs: A Great White Egret plus 3 Dunlins and a Chiffchaff (Geoff Williams).

Wishaw
Warks: A Peregrine was on the pylons and ca. 600 Golden Plover were seen flighting over the M42 corridor with very small numbers joining them from the Wishaw direction.

There has been some discussion recently about the protracted stay of a Wood Sandpiper at Blithfield Res (Staffs). A bird arrived there this autumn and looked set to over-winter but left after 65 days on November 23rd.
In the Tame Valley, we had a bird which did over-winter and was thought at the time to be the first recorded occurrence of such an event in the UK. A bird arrived on October 30th 1982 and remained until May 3rd 1983. It frequented the old gravel pits, which contained numerous small islands, with shallow pools in between, at Coton and on the now-named Swann Pool, KWP.

A similarly rare event occurred in the same area when a Spotted Redshank arrived on December 27th 1980, remaining until April 25th 1981.

The Tame Valley gravel pits were in their prime at this time and the growth of vegetation over the intervening 35 plus years has lessened their attraction to wading species as is the case with every gravel pit complex.