Saturday 05/04/2014

It was a great morning in the park starting with the first Common Tern of the year which was flying around the main lake when I arrived just after 6am. It was still about when DK and JA arrived so we all got our year tick.

Common Tern

We also had 2 Common Terns over 100 Acre and by the time we got back to the Park there were 2 over the main lake which were still there when we left.

Highlight of the morning was the Red Kite first seen over 100 Acre and then again over the visitor centre and heading west just before we left the park.

Red Kite

Red Kite

Red Kite

 There was also a Common Buzzard over 100 Acre.

Common Buzzard

100 Acre also had a good selection of waders with Snipe, Oystercatcher, Redshank and the colour ringed Black-winged Stilt all showing well. There were 4 Little Ringed Plovers over on the earth works at Castle Mill and a single Ringed Plover.

Little Ringed Plovers

Ringed Plover

There were plenty of spring migrants in the park with a couple of Willow Warblers, plenty of Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs and a handful of Sand Martins. There was an Oystercatcher on the main lake island, all in all a pretty good morning birding.

Saturday 11/08/2012

Last Sunday the volunteer group were working in the park. The first task was to remove the Himalayan Balsam along the river between Cardington Lock and the Canoe Slalom. It seems a shame as this is a beautiful flower as seen below:

Himalayan Balsam flower

However as you can see below it is an extremely invasive non native species and soon takes over:

Himalayan Balsam

Having removed several blocks of this plant during the morning we moved over to the Finger Lakes in the afternoon where we removed 3 boat loads of Water Soldier from the east lake. This is another invasive species which is rapidly taking over the Finger Lakes this year. The plants sit below the surface and then rise up at flowering time.

This morning it was quite a foggy start over the main lake and the light was a little disappointing after yesterday mornings glorious start. I did catch this group of Canada Geese coming in to land in front of me and the main lake dipping platform is a good place for a Tern fly past.

Canada Geese

Common Tern

As I walked down to the dipping platform I had 12 Blackbirds on the New Meadow and 3 Greenfinch in the hedge by the Labyrinth. DK joined me at the dipping platform and immediately trumped my Blackbird and Greenfinch counts with 15 and 10 respectively.

EG was ringing in the Rough again so we stopped to have a chat and obviously brought some luck as the first birds of the day were extracted from the nets. A Green Sandpiper flew over calling. This Bullfinch was hanging around most of the time we were in the Rough but was avoiding the nets, at least until we left.

Bullfinch

Generally it was quiet with birds of note being the 8 Swallows over north east at the STW bridge, a Kingfisher by the main lake at the Visitor Centre and 2 Swifts in the same area. There were quite a lot of calling Chiffchaffs and we also had a singing Willow Warbler on the corner of the Finger Lakes opposite the Beach.

The sun eventually burned through the clouds and I had a very pleasant wander around Mowsbury Hillfort Nature Reserve. Goldcrest was note worthy among the birds and there were also a variety of butterflies around including Peacock, Brimstone, Large White, Green-veined White, Meadow Brown and Speckled Wood. A Brown Hawker Dragonfly was hunting in the Orchard.