Crossbills at Brown Clee, Shropshire

  A Great Grey Shrike was discovered two days ago at Brown Clee, Shropshire. So at about 08.00, John and I left my house and made our way to the south of the county. We stopped off at Cound, to check out the 4 adult Whopper Swans on the way. After about an hour of messing around and ending up in the wrong places, we finally parked in a layby at Hillside on the east side of Brown Clee. We had just got out the car and the first bird I heard was a Marsh Tit. We found the bird and with in a few minutes of standing there we also got, 6 Redpoll sp, 8 Siskins, 2 Nuthatch, 1 Treecreeper, all four of the other comm tits and a single Crossbill. John said, taking away the latter species, it would of taken him half a day to see that lot in Kent! We spent a good two hours looking for the shrike, but all we could produce were, Buzzards, Ravens, more Redpoll and Siskin and a flock of 7 Crossbills.

Two of the 4 adult Whooper Swans at Cound

Over 20 Buzzards were seen in the area of Brown Clee

Treecreeper at Brown Clee

  Next we headed West and got a male Goshawk fly over at close range. At Clunton Coppice, the Yellowhammer flock had increased from 50, last week, to over 150!! We both had never seen this many Yellowhammers before. With them were 50+Chaffinch and 5 Bramblings.

Part of the flock of 150+Yellowhammers at Clunton Coppice with a single Brambling in the near center of the photo.