Trip reports

Thrushes Galore

Les Blundell

Sunday, 11 December 2011

A small but keen group gathered on a cool and grey drizzly morning at Virginia Water to explore the woodland and some of the lake. Very quickly we heard the 'football rattle' of a stormcock, commonly known as a mistle thrush, considering the amount of mistletoe in the trees this should have been expected. Several mistle thrushes and song thrushes constantly flew around the tops of the bare trees, making viewing and identification much easier when they were side by side for size comparison. Some of the song thrushes were singing in readiness for the full blast in the new year while a mistle thrush waited for some drizzle to start before it started to sing for us. A few redwing arrived to add to the thrush family and spent their time searching the trees for winter sustenance.
We came across a mixed tit flock, which included a couple of goldcrest darting through the branches, while a solitary treecreeper kept an eye on them from below. A large flock of chaffinches crossed in front of us and as hard as we tried looking for a brambling we did not find one. We continued through the woodland to the lake where it was fairly quiet. A glimpse of a kingfisher, a great crested grebe or two, a couple of tufties and mallards broke the dark flatness of the water. We saw or heard 31 species on the walk round with the final addition being a nuthatch just before we got back to our cars.