Tuesday 28th January 2025 - Chew Valley Lake
This week it was still only David and Tony and we had
decided to visit Marshfield as we were likely to find 3 year ticks,
Yellowhammer, Corn Bunting and Red Legged Partridge with a couple more
possibilities but as it turned out Monday had been horrendous with one of the
named storm passing through and we were left with high winds so when David
arrived we quickly decided the change locations to Chew Valley Lake as there
are certain parts that would be more sheltered than the wide open expanse of
Marshfield. It was just a morning visit with Herriotts our first stop on the
way we started our list with Jackdaw, Magpie and
Blackbird. At Herriotts the pond was quite
busy with Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Coot, Tufted
Duck and Mallard all very close. Out
on the shallower part of the pond was a Great White
Egret and a Grey Heron with several Black Headed and Lesser
Black Back Gulls. As we walked across the road to view the main lake a
small flock of Starlings flew over and David
spotted a Marsh Harrier over the reed beds.
Another almost empty lake but we did add Pochard and
Great Crested Grebe and as we looked in the
trees all around were very many Cormorants probably
100 or more. Down the edge of the reeds was this Great
White Egret.
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| Great White Egret - Herriotts (Bath Birdwatcher) |
Nothing more to add here so we moved on to Moreton hide
giving Stratford a miss as the lane is likely to flood and given the rain we
had on Monday it was silly to give it a try. On our way to Moreton a Blue Tit flew across the road and once inside the
private road a Jay flew up from the ground
in front of us also seen on the ground were 2 female Chaffinch and a Robin.
In the field behind the hide were over 100 Canada
Geese here we also saw our 1st Woodpigeon
of the day. As I said earlier the main lake was almost devoid of birds,
but we did see a male Goldeneye.
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| Goldeneye - Moreton (Bath Birdwatcher) |
Out in the middle of the lake was a Great
Black Back Gull and a flock of 6 Goosander flew
over, we did talk to a fellow birder who gave us directions to a Glossy Ibis
that had been seen locally in Denny Lane. We moved on stopping at Herons Green
where we had a hot drink but didn’t add any sightings, but we did chat with
another birder who also gave us direction to the Ibis. So, you guess right, our
next stop was Denny Lane following directions we found the new Build house
where we parked and walked a few yards and found a mixed flock of Starlings and Redwings
in a field on the left but the Glossy Ibis were
in the field opposite but there was a hedge just too high to look over, we
walked to a gate and from there I found the birds closer to where we had parked
the car so walked back to a place where the hedge was lower and had good views
of the 2 birds.
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| Glossy Ibis - Denny Lane (Bath Birdwatcher) |
We were running out of time so drove to the picnic area for
a quick look but nothing new here, on to picnic area 2 where we walked to the
bridge adding Long Tailed Tit, Little Egret,
Moorhen and Goldcrest. Nothing more
was seen here but on the drive home Pheasant and
Herring Gull ended the morning.
2 Year ticks Glossy Ibis and Goosander was very nice
bringing my year total to 96, 28 more than this time last year.
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| Cormorant - Moreton (Bath Birdwatcher) |
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| Diving Goldeneye - Moreton |
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