A Penduline Tit had taken up residence on a very small nature area called Plock Court Wetland Area, Longford near Gloucester. It has been present for about a month and seems to be very settled with a couple of shallow pools and bulrushes to feed upon. Bob, Kevin & myself hatched a plan to have a go for the bird, but as the weather forecast for Gloucester was not very good in the morning we would depart at 9-30am, with myself driving. We left Castleton and were soon heading for the Highway to Hell that the M6 has become to be known as. The weather all the way down was horrible with snow, sleet and rain pelting the car. Roadworks, variable speed limits and a whole host of other conditions still didnt put us off though. We all looked at one another a couple of times as if to say, We must be mad but the adventure has to go on we all said!
Once we got past Worcester on the M5 the snow stopped and light rain (only) fell. News reached us that the Penduline Tit was still present, Kevin was very happy about that! We soon found the small nature area, parked up and put on our wellies and waded across the wetland. Bob soon located the smart little Penduline Tit and we all watched the bird down to about 5 metres as it happily fed on the bulrushes. It all became apparent why we do these crazy things to watch our avian friends. After about an hour the rain began to fall again, but news of a Great Grey Shrike in the area had us heading for the car.
The Great Grey Shrike had been seen at Ashelworth Ham nature reserve at 8-30am this morning, the reserve was around 6 miles away. It was hard to find the reserve on flooded, narrow roads with little help from Satnav`s etc. We eventually found it though, the pools have been formed by being a flood plain for the River Severn, very similar to the Somerset levels we all remarked. Alas the shrike was not seen but Gadwall, Pintail, Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Greylag Goose & Canada Geese were there in good numbers. The elevated hide seemed to be the home of a cat that refused to leave the hide as we were leaving, even though we left the door open for it. We had visited two new nature areas in Gloucestershire and were quite impressed. At around 3-00pm we headed home, with only rain all the way and the obligatory hold ups on the M6 to slow us down. Quite an adventure that was!
