Wednesday 17th July 2019
Wednesday 17th July 2019
I hadn’t realised but it is ten weeks since my last visit to my local reserve.
It was a pleasant morning when I arrived at just after 9.00am. Since my last visit they have installed a car park ticket machine, it is still free for members to park but we have to display a ticket from the machine on your windscreen, I do not have a problem with that at all, other than the machine is situated in the wrong place and secondly, for an old dodder like me the instructions are not exactly clear, I managed to get a ticket after several attempts but I watched and tried to help other visitors use the machine all to no avail. I think some more work in progress needs doing to simplify the process and also re site the machine either in the centre of the car park or next to the path leading up to the reserve!
It was a pleasant morning, 20C as I arrived at the centre, with a very light breeze and a grey cloudy sky. The Visitors centre was still closed as I made my way along the ‘Discovery Trail’ around to the ‘Pick up hide’. The first thing that struck me was how lush and green all the vegetation was, the Purple Loostrife was in full flower and swaying gently in the light westerly breeze. I was surprised to see how overgrown the vegetation had become since my last visit. The top of the Sand martin wall was covered in Bramble briars though although looking unsightly wasn’t deterring the birds visiting their nest sites in the wall. The water level in the lake was quite low which was ideal for the waders though with the exception of a Little Egret and a handful of Lapwings they were the only visitors to the water whilst I was there. I could hear the Green Woodpecker calling quite frequently during the morning over to the left of the hide but it was keeping well out of my line of sight hiding amongst the undergrowth.
Closer to the hide and around the feeding station was a little more activity, though not a lot. The area was heavily overgrown with the Bramble briars which made it extremely difficult to film let alone see the smaller birds as they flitted amongst the greenery.
Male and female Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Great Tits were frequent visitors, along with Wood Pigeon, Tree Sparrows and Dunnocks. Pair of Cock Pheasant were busily hoovering up the spoils from the feeders as was the occasional Hen Pheasant. The Grey Squirrels sempt quite content at trying to remove the fat balls from the squirrel proof feeder, sat patiently on the top of the feeder gently rolling and nibbling at the fat ball between its front paws until it was small enough to extract from the feeder.
After about an hour of inactivity at and around the hide I decided to go for a walk along the steam side to the Kingfisher screen. The water appeared quite stagnant and covered in silt which was disappointing to see as there was no chance of seeing any Kingfishers nor the Kingfishers seeing the food under the water’s surface. It was a pleasant walk back to the centre though.
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