Monday 7 March 2011

Corn Buntings (just outside our region)

Thought that blog participants might be interested in car tickable Corn Buntings that are just outside our immediate region.  On travelling back via A5 North West of Shrewsbury on Friday 4th March, 24 Corn Buntings were counted in the top of some small trees bordering the North side of the road.  When heading back towards North Wales there is a section of relatively new dual carriageway near Nesscliffe.  There is a roundabout at the end of the dual carriageway and the birds were 20-30 metres along the road on the North side.  At one point they flew across the road to an area where there appeared to be a large mound of mature, then returned to the trees.  I was travelling up that road again on Sunday 6th and had a single bird fly up from the mature heap to alight on top of one of the trees.  If you decide to stop, be particularly careful as this is an extremely busy road and the traffic moves very quickly.  If you are going to stop, probably best to take one of the side roads and walk back a little and scope from a safe position.  Not an easy bird to catch up with locally.  The area is not too far away from Bettisfield, which is the area of Wales where I had my last Welsh sighting of Corn Bunting. Bettisfield is just west of Ellesmere and the Welsh border dips down into the Shropshire countryside.  

1 comment:

  1. A great local record. There have been some at Venus Pool this week as well.
    Tried and failed to see or hear any at Bettisfield over the past 3 summers, but lets hope they are still clinging on somewhere there or at Shotwick.

    Kev

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