Today I attended John Walton's funeral, one of Brandon Marsh's founding fathers. It was an excellent turnout as I'd imagined it would be with a nice service to commemorate Johns life and the time and effort he'd dedicated throughout the years in making the reserve what it is today!
Tagged tweet from Steve Cheshire
After returning from Brandon late afternoon I'd just settled back aboard when I was tagged in a tweet from @britbutterflies (Steve Cheshire), who I'd actually spoken to at the funeral that afternoon. To my amazement, it was showing three photographs of a large bird circling over Ryton Wood. Steve, who would be the first to admit he's not a birder, butterflies his expertise, was asking for ID and quite clearly this was a White Stork! He'd apparently noticed it flying over while trying to photograph a Red-underwing Moth.
I immediately put the sighting out on the Warwickshire Birders Whatsapp group as it appeared, according to Steve, that the bird was heading towards Brandon Marsh.
White Stork at Grandborough ~ Slight red hue from the setting sun
Astonishing it was sighted just a short time later over the Grandborough area by Tim Marlow. Leading on Tim, Theo de Clermont and John Judge (@draycotebirding) had the bird located in a field not far from Grandborough Church, just a ten-minute drive from my mooring. Of course, I was there within ten and managed some excellent scoped views and even a small piece of hand-held video.
Short hand-held video as the bird departed towards Draycote Water
It was a brilliant effort by all from the time the sighting came out to actually locating the bird. From the many photographs taken over the past 18hrs (the bird was still being seen today) it appears that it has no rings, could this be a wild one? Only time will tell.
