Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Day

Paid a quick visit to the park this morning and the flooding is much more extensive than it was a couple of days ago.

The Crescent is now out of bounds with the water up to the hand rails of the little bridge off the main path.

The Steps are out of bounds with flood water troubling the tops of my wellies!

Water was still pouring into the Finger lakes through the pipe between east Fingers and the Navigation Channel so expect levels to continue rising around Fingers.

The east side of the Finger lakes along side the Navigation Channel is rapidly filling up but still passable. Kingsmead is mostly under water, providing a sanctuary for a lot of wildfowl.

I didn't bother going around to the south side of the main lake as that was already flooded on Sunday so it can only have got worse given the increase in water levels else where.

So wellies are definitely the order of the day, not those new white trainers you got for Christmas!

On the bird front there was a good sized Jackdaw roost overnight and they all departed just after I arrived, around 07:40. A Kingfisher in the north east corner of the main lake was a nice xmas prezzie. On Kingsmead there were 7 Little Egrets with 3 Grey Herons along with a good quantity of Mallards and Geese. Most of these departed in a hurry when spooked by something but a scan for the expected Fox revealed nothing so no idea what caused them all to depart. A couple of the Egrets came back along with 56 Canada Geese and a single Greylag.

From Kramer Hide I had 3 Shovelers (2m/1f) and a Bullfinch was calling nearby.

Finally back on the main path I found the Slavonian Grebe, along the north edge of the main lake, between the Steps and the Spit.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Bodes well for guided walk, then? LOL Seasons greetings to all friends and visitors to the Park from a wet Somerset.

David said...

Yes might be reduced to a walk out along the cycle track! Forgot to mention the Water Rail and Little Grebe on Fingers. The guided walk is on Sunday at 9am, meet outside the Visitor Centre.