Saturday 28th Feb Forest Of Dean / Slimbridge / Frampton

Today 28th Feb 2009 was our trip to the Forest of Dean we had arranged to leave my mates at 7 o,clock at about 1/4 to our other fried phoned to say they where feeling unwell so we set off just the two of us we had a plane for the day and we stuck to it and what a day we had

Our first port of call was The New Fancy Watch Point in the forest of Dean we arrived and climbed up to the watch point for Goshawk our target bird for the day after a short while we had Raven, Crossbill, then one of the other people looking said I have have a Goshawk sitting in a tree and what a view the best I have seen Goshawk in a long time, We then had 4 more birds in the air displaying what a start to our day we also had Common buzzard.

We then had a look at the feeders in the car park where we had Brambling we then had a short stroll looking for Willow Tit but with no luck then it was back to the car and as we passed the feeders a willow Tit flew of.

Our next stop was Cannop Ponds where we had Grey Wagtail, Mandarine Duck, Goosander, we also had a look at the bridge for Dipper but no Luck but we had been told of another site which was our next stop where we did find Dipper thanks to a screaming child who moved it from under the bridge now has we had seen most of the species in the forest we then headed for Slimbridge where a American Wigeon had been seen we then had a look to see if we could find my mate a Water Rail this is a god site to see them but no luck, I did have Spotted Redshank. we also had a nice Sparrowhawk sitting on a post very close, Our next stop was Frampton for the Long Eared Owl that had been present for most of the winter as we where driving into Framptom we came upon a group of people watching something at the side of the road this turned out to be 22 Waxwings very nice indeed then it was onto the spot for the Owl, when we arrived we where the only people there but after a short while some one else turned up and said you need to walk past the reed bed and look back (this turned out to be information from the previous day) while we where watching for the Owl  my mate finally got his water rail after a short while  a local turned up and said your looking in the wrong place and put us on the bird after watching the Owl for a while we then had a short walk where we found a distant Short Eared Owl 

So all in all a very pleasant birding day