Druridge Diary: Many, many beiards

I'm back.... I've been to Jordan...where there were many, many, beiards (as the Jordanians told us constantly - they were right and they were the friendliest people I have met). But more of that later.

The weather conditions as forecasted last night, looked good for the possibility of many, many beiards on the east coast – so I took a flyer from work and headed to the patch.

It wasn’t as good as it could have been, tomorrow might be better? I only managed to get from the plantation at the entrance to the track to the Oddie hide. There has been an influx of birds, most evident were blackbirds, robins, goldcrests and blackcaps. Fieldfares and redwings were flying over in small groups.

Bird of the evening was a short-eared owl, disturbed from its perch in the bushes, it flew out onto the Budge fields and just sat there. Of course, my camera battery was flat so no pics.

An awesome spectacle reminded that patch-watching and birding isn’t just about rare birds. The common starling, albeit over 3000 of them, was perhaps the highlight, as they came into roost in the tiny reedbed in the corner of the big pool. I had hidden myself away and watch flock, after flock, come into roost. It was complete chaos as they jostled and moved for position and then….silence…..amazing!

Let’s see what tomorrow brings!

Jordan was awesome! Great country, great birding and fantastically friendly people. A wadge of Western-Pally ticks for me including little green bee-eater, Palestine sunbird, white-cheeked bulbul, yellow-vented bulbul, Arabian warbler, Arabian babbler, Asian desert warbler, Tristram’s serin, Indian silverbill (tarts tick) and Armenian gull. Bird of the trip probably went to the northern Jordan endemic race of desert lark ‘annae’ – they were really cool.