Dawn Chorus Walk on Sunday 14th May

PLEASE NOTE: Just to confuse things there are 2 dawn chorus walks in the park on Sunday! The RSPB local group are also running a dawn chorus walk starting at 5am, details here: RSPB Local Group dawn chorus walk.

The annual Priory Country Park dawn chorus walk begins at 4am. (We are hardcore! 😀) Anyone attending this walk please note that the 4am start time means you could find the barrier to the car park closed if you arrive before I do. If this is the case please wait in the small parking area, to the left of the entrance by the recycling skips, until I arrive. Meet outside the cafe as normal. Thanks, Dave.

Sunrise

New steps at 100 Acre access point

A great job by the Sunday and Monday volunteers, supported by the rangers, putting in place a new set of steps to ease access down to the 100 Acre area of the park. These may look like the steps to nowhere at the moment with the barbed wire fence preventing further access to the site but a new kissing gate is on the cards which will create a circular route around this area of meadow and lakes.

May Day bank holiday weekend

The last couple of weeks have seen some interesting birds passing through the park and neighbouring 100 Acre. The previous weekend saw a brief visit to 100 Acre by a Curlew. It dropped in unseen and left soon after, I managed to get this record shot as flew off.

Curlew

I spent sometime photographing the Little Grebes on 100 Acre and was lucky to have a Common Sandpiper land nearby where I managed a record shot.

Common Sandpiper

Little Grebe eating a fish

Down it goes!

A Whinchat showed up on 100 Acre the same day I photographed the Little Grebes but I had to wait until the following day to catch up with it. Again just a record shot as it perched up on a fence post.

Whinchat

On the way back from the Whinchat JA spotted a Wheatear on the west side of the big lake.

Wheatear

 A pair of Grey Wagtails at the Sewage Works Bridge had a couple of youngsters and the adult female spent her time on guard duty.

Grey Wagtail

On Sunday 30th April I had a big turn out for the monthly Guided Walk and we had a good morning capped by the arrival of a Grey Plover while we were out on 100 Acre looking for the Whinchat. There were also a lot of Butterflies active and a single Small Copper was the highlight of those.

May day saw a switch in the weather with strong easterly winds and heavy showers. This brought an influx of passage migrants and on Monday morning the main lake was home to 3 Black Terns, single Arctic Tern and a single adult Little Gull.

Black Tern

Black Tern

Black Terns

The Black Terns remained stubbornly out by the island limiting the photo opportunities but the Common Terns came closer to shore and continued to entertain during one of the heavy showers.

Common Tern

Common Tern

Common Tern

Of the residents a number of Mallards have young now. Both Coots and Moorhens also have young. A pair of Egyptian Geese have 3 young and a Greylag pair has six goslings. All the summer migrants have arrived now with the most obvious, the Cuckoo, seen and heard regularly around the park at the weekend. Reed Warbler numbers continue to increase and can be found burbling away in the reed beds while Willow Warblers numbers have dropped again as they continue their journeys north. The Grey Heron nests all contain young of various sizes.

And finally the new Tern raft has seen interest from several Common Terns, hope to see some using it for nesting in the coming days.