Tuesday 24th January 2023 - Forest of Dean.

 

This week’s trip took the 3 Amigos to the Forest of Dean on a recce for the upcoming Bath RSPB’s field trip. As we left Bath via Lansdown a flock of Golden Plover were in a field opposite the golf course. 1st stop Parkend and here by the cricket field is a good birding spot. Hoping for our 1st target species, as we parked, people were already bird spotting and from the car Blackbird and Chaffinch could already be seen, joining the other birders we soon found the target species Hawfinch at least 6 birds, a great start to the day also seen were Magpie and Blue Tit. We decided to walk to the stream hoping for a Dipper but no luck with that one but we did find Nuthatch, Great Tit, Song Thrush, Stock Dove, House Sparrow, Carrion Crow, Collared Dove, Coal Tit, Robin, and Wren. We then moved on to RSPB Nags Head for a short walk to see the state of the footpaths which were frozen solid in most places but in the sun the top was starting to thaw. During the walk we added Redwing a small flock of Bullfinch,  extra to what we had previously seen. Next we moved to New Fancy lookout where we had lunch and here we added Jackdaw and a large flock of Goldfinch. After lunch it was off to Speech House area where we walked to Woorgreens Lake but as it was frozen solid nothing was seen so we walked on to Crabtree Hill, a Buzzard in a tree was soon ticked as was a Dunnock, but it was a long walk before we came across our next species 2cronking Ravens. Our next sight was another Hawfinch a single male in the top of a tree. Retracing our steps 2 Jays were seen and it wasn’t until we were close to the car that David spotted a Treecreeper. The day was racing away so we set off to Canop Ponds here we parked by the stone yard when food is put out for the birds and many Tits and Finches were feeding and just a single Marsh Tit. The lake was frozen over but a Moorhen was braving the ice and a Pied Wagtail was feeding amongst the finches. We decided to drive back to the top lake as we could see through the trees that this lake was ice free and it was worth it with a minimum of 50 Mandarin along with smaller numbers of Mallard, Coot, Little Grebe, Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Teal and Mute Swan.

Mandarin - Bath Birdwatcher

Time to set off home and walking back to the car a Wood Pigeon was in a tree, and where the overflow from the lake run down a stream to the bottom lake I spotted a Dipper a species we had hoped to find earlier in the day.

Dipper - Bath Birdwatcher

 On the trip back to Bath we added Herring Gull, Rook and Kestrel giving us a day total of 42 species.

Blue Tit - Bath Birdwatcher


Goldfinch - Bath Birdwatcher


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saturday 11th November 2023 - Newton St Loe.

Image
  NSL Boathouse with the lonely Mute Swan - Bath Birdwatcher When we woke up on Saturday it was such a beautiful day we decided to go for a walk at Newton St Loe as we have not visited since the 26 th of October and we were interested not only in the bird life but the autumn colour’s of the trees. We arrived parking as usual by the church where in the field beyond the church we found our first sightings Magpie, Jackdaw and Rooks all flyover. In the hedgerow opposite the cottages were Blue Tits and Woodpigeons and Long Tailed Tits were in the trees by Ripple Effect. On the footpath were Blackbird and Robin and on reaching Butterfly Alley a Grey Heron was in the trees above the stream, and a Wren flew into the hedge to our right. The lake outlet was a real torrent over the waterfall which was expected due to the amount of rain we have had recently. Waterfall NSL (Bath Birdwatcher)  Up to the bottom lake where 2 Kingfishers were playing chase and I thought I heard a possible 3...
Read more

Sunday 19th January 2025 - Blagdon Lake

Image
  The first, Bath RSPB’s field trip of the year was a visit to Blagdon lake where Nigel Milbourne the site warden led our group of 14 members. When we arrived having seen a Red Kite on the way we were waiting for others to arrive, so I scanned the lake and found Mallard, Coot, Tufted Duck, Moorhen and Black Headed Gull. As others arrived we all got together, and David introduced us all to Nigel and we set off to walk the length of the dam looking for an overwintering Common Sandpiper but unfortunately it didn’t show but we did find Mute Swan, Cormorant, Common Gull, Great Black Back Gull, Pied Wagtail and Herring Gull. Walking back to the cars we added flyover Carrion Crow, Woodpigeon and Starling plus our 1 st Great Crested Grebe of the day. We then drove inside the confines of the lake where we parked and from here our 1 st new bird of the day was a calling Chaffinch and on the lake in front of us were Teal, Pochard and Gadwall. We also looked at a strange duck which had caused...
Read more

Tuesday 4th March 2025 - Marshfield

Image
  A bit f a last-minute decision was to go to Marshfield for this week’s birding trip mainly as we could only spare a half day. Parking at the Bath end of Marshfield we set off towards Bond’s Lane spotting Robin, House Sparrow and Goldfinch. Crossing the A420 we set off down the lane where Jackdaw and Woodpigeon flew past and in a field to our left were 2 Ravens feeding on something unknown in the grass, they flew away and a Carrion Crow flew in taking their place. As we continued David spotted movement in a hedge to our right but looking into the sun made it difficult to identify the birds but one flew up into a bush to our right enabling up to identify it as a lovely male Yellowhammer, a year tick.  Yellowhammer - Marshfield (Bath Birdwatcher) A Dunnock flew down onto the side of the road and a flock of Rooks flew past. A Skylark was singing in the sky above us but hard to find against the blue sky but with binoculars I did find it year tick no2. A Blue Tit and a few Linnets...
Read more