Penduline Tits at Horsebere Pool Gloucester

We set off this morning around the London Orbital and up the M4 stopping at 8am to collect "an insurance" tick with the female Hooded Merganser. (You just never know) Adding this to the Radipole bird to increase our chances of having a reasonable chance of removing the words "pending" from the year/life list against this much debated species.

Hooded Merganser (Plastic or the real deal?)

After a brief spell watching the duck and a pair of Grebes carrying out their mating ritual which is always good to watch we headed off up the M4 towards our targets at Horsebere Pool Gloucester.
After another hour in the car we pulled into the layby opposite the Premier Inn and could see a small gathering of birders surrounding the small pool. We walked the very short distance and straight away found the two Penduline Tits feeding with a group of Reed Bunting and Long-tailed Tits for company. A couple of Chiffchaff hawked the lower fringes of the reeds and an Egret spooked the roosting Snipe which took off high and there must have been at least sixty birds possibly more. By far the largest group of Snipe I've ever seen.

Penduline Tits

Pendulines

Our next stop was New Fancy viewpoint being only half an hour away. We parked and climbed the ramp to find the platform full. After a couple of minutes we were looking at a pair of Goshawks displaying high then low in the tree line giving fantastic views before one settled in a tree to allow great scope views. More views of birds soaring over the tree tops before another decided to come that bit closer to display for us and then sit in another tree. Our best views to date of Goshawks. Raven and Buzzard also showed well here but the memory of those displaying Gos's will live long.

Gos!!

Just around the corner from the view point we found Parkend Church and parked up to view a pair of Common Crossbill before taking some time to find Hawfinch at the cricket pitch area down the road.

Hawfinch

Hawfinch "at the cricket pitch"

All in all a great days birding spoilt only by the need to clock up so many miles to get the views we did of this splendid collection of birds.

Year list now 173