Kings Norton Nature Reserve 25/10/15

On Sunday afternoon I made my way for the second time to my new local patch, Kings Norton Nature Reserve. Having spent most of the weekend seeing some of my favourite bands at Simple Things Festival in Bristol my birding time was limited but nonetheless I managed to grab an hour and a half at the reserve in the failing light!

I saw 30 species in total (again) and of these, 8 were new since my first trip:

• Lesser Black-backed Gull flying over - a common sight in Birmingham, especially at this time of day in winter when they are heading somewhere to roost, in this part of Birmingham most likely Bartley Reservoir.
• Great Spotted Woodpecker.
• Buzzard - heard but not seen.
• Jackdaws - a good-sized roost (maybe a hundred or so birds) along the Rea Valley route.
• Sparrowhawk.
• A few Starlings flying over.
• Chaffinch.
• The hoped-for Teal on Wychall Reservoir. In the terrible light it was hard to tell but there were at least 10 present.

Inexplicably I still haven't seen any Canada Geese! There were lots more Goldcrests about than last time, I guess at least some originated from continental Europe and by now have filtered through from the east coast after the recent influx. Also, in a strange coincidence, since I grumbled slightly in my last post about the lack of views into some of the habitat along the Rea Valley route, several vistas have been cut into the vegetation adjacent to the path!

Terrible photo in the crepuscular gloom, of a newly opened-up view.

I also had a first attempt at HDR photography having wanted to try this for a while and after being encouraged by my bro. I used Luminance HDR to process the images and I'm still getting my head around it! So here are some initial efforts, I'm hoping to keep learning and experimenting to produce something a bit better.

 FULL BIRD LIST
 

Blackbird Goldfinch Moorhen Black-headed Gull Great Spotted Woodpecker Mute Swan Blue Tit Great Tit Redwing Bullfinch Grey Wagtail Robin Buzzard Jackdaw Sparrowhawk Carrion Crow Jay Starling Chaffinch Lesser Black-backed Gull Teal Coal Tit Long-tailed Tit Tufted Duck Coot Magpie Woodpigeon Goldcrest Mallard Wren