Warm and wet this morning although, happily, not as wet as expected. Much of the ice has cleared from the main lake and east fingers but it is still clinging on in west fingers. Plenty of wildfowl on the main lake with ~180 Coot, 70+ Tufted Ducks, 50+ Pochard and 19 Wigeon. Also a large number of Mute Swans and plenty of Gadwall. The Bewick's have seemingly moved on to Radwell.
I joined up with DK and JA this morning for a stroll around the park. We picked up up a few more ducks on fingers with 5 Shoveler, 2 Teal and a handful of Gadwall. Highlight of the morning occurred as we head back along the Spit to the main path. JA spotted a Bittern flying north across east fingers and alerted myself and DK to it as we were looking the other way. It had probably come out of the Crescent reed bed which we had walked around a little earlier. We all followed its track in the hope of picking it up again at Kramer hide or along the navigation channel, it wasn't to be however.
DK spotted a dead Kestrel between fingers and the navigation channel. I spotted a Sparrowhawk , very much alive, high over Kingsmead a little later.
A Pochard, 2 Tufted Duck, Little Grebe and ~130 Starlings were seen from the old railway bridge at the STW, no sign of the Bittern which may have gone to Willington GP or anywhere in between!
We skirted the woodland walk and picked up a pair of Bullfinch before cutting through Fingers and spotting another female Bullfinch in the Rough. Back on the main path I spotted a Water Rail in the main lake reed bed.
We walked around the main lake confirming numbers of wildfowl as we went arriving back at the car park to end another great morning at the park.
No comments:
Post a Comment