This afternoon we saw: a flock of about 40 Fieldfare moving between the tops of the trees in Pony Wood to the ones at the edge of West Field; at least one pair of Greenfinch by the Fauna Path near the stones; a Charm of Goldfinch further along ; 4 Mistle Thrush and a Redwing in the GGS field.
Month: January 2018
Heron in Big Meadow
Spotted this morning as I walked over to join the Hedge Working Party. It was initially in Loxams Pond with its long neck sticking up above the soft rush of the marsh. It then flew over to Friars Pond (both ponds are hard to see amongst the marsh vegetation unless you know they are there). Lots of linnets are still flying around the bird seed margin in Flora Field.
Winter wildlife
The Hedge Working Party were mainly working near Pony Wood this morning and so had a look in the wood for the recently reported little owl. We didn’t see that but we did put up a brown hare which went bounding off through the wood.
Later I had a lovely sighting of a mistle thrush in the Orchard
Volunteer Session Saturday 13th January 2018
Here is Jonathan’s message
Greetings All,
And a very Happy New Year to you and yours.
Two items for your volunteering attention on this occasion.
First, there’ll be a volunteer session in Fairfield Orchard, Fauna and
Flora this Saturday, January 13th, starting at 10.00am and finishing all
rosy cheeked at 1.00pm. Please come along if you possibly can no matter
what the state of you.
Work to be getting on with includes:
* Continuing to cut out bramble and unwanted sapling suckers through the
Orchard.
* Removing the net from the roof of the shed, carefully mind you, so as
not to spill the sycamore seeds.
* Replacing broken fencing post at Hay Meadow double gates and repairing
wire.
* Fixing new fencing posts to secure the open gate between Big Meadow and
Hay Meadow.
* Adding barbed wire strand to weak points along the West Field / Pads
wire fence.
* Trimming the hedge at the southern end of the Pads footpath / Big Meadow.
Second, food and drink lovers will be glad to learn the volunteer buffet
will be held at The Storey on February 22nd, 7- 9pm (please note the
change of date).
The cost is £10 per person.
Please book a place with either Sue Nieduszynska (sue@nieduszynski.org or
01524 60480) or Ian Procter (sysaf123-volunteer@yahoo.co.uk or 07811 970
595) by Feb 15th as we need to give numbers to The Print Room Cafe. Well
behaved spouses and partners are very welcome. This is a great opportunity
for cake bakers and calendar makers to mix with hedge layers, scythers and
other good people so please join us for a rare evening of relaxation.
And that’s about it for now,
Best wishes,
Jonathan.
Not the bird I was looking for!
I went up to Pony wood this afternoon to try to see the little owl that Graham had seen this morning, but saw this great spotted woodpecker high up.
The red patch at the back of its head shows that it is a male.
Not as bad as we thought
We were quite disappointed by this morning’s flush count. Maybe the snipe are preferring the estuary to the semi-frozen ground and continuing very wet conditions in the nature reserve. But looking back at the records, today’s total of 42 snipe (including 5 jack) is actually higher than the previous two Januarys.
Four snipe went up in the Hay Meadow, 3 in School Pond and 35 in Big Meadow. In addition we spotted several wrens, two mistle thrush in the LGGS Field, a female pheasant in Upper Sowerholme and a little egret flying over along the line of Lucy Brook. Earlier Graham had seen a little owl in Pony Wood.
Birds Galore
Walking around the Reserve yesterday afternoon we saw ten linnets on the hawthorn tree on the long pads path, then a group of three redwing and three fieldfare a little way beyond Alder pond. Finally on the ash tree opposite School pond were five species of bird:- redwing (in photo), mistle thrush, great spotted woodpecker, magpie and jackdaw, all enjoying the last rays of the sun.