Tuesday 7th January 2025 - Newton St Loe.

 

It was a return to Newton St Loe alone as Bryan is still recovering from his operation and David was under the weather. The day started very cold, and it took a long time too unfreeze the car and then I made a mistake by taking the main road to NSL as I thought it was the safest with the conditions as they were. BIG mistake 3way traffic lights at Windsor Bridge with the traffic queueing back to Brougham Hayes. Well, I did eventually arrive and park by the church, nothing in the churchyard but in the field beyond a small flock of Woodpigeons feeding in the grass and many Jackdaws flying over. On the bottom road Blue Tits were in the hedgerow and Lesser Black Back Gull and Magpie flew by, 2 Dunnocks were feeding by the side of the road with Great Tit and Robin visiting the feeders, and Carrion Crows in the top of the tallest trees. Nothing more until Butterfly Alley where a Grey Heron was by the side of the stream. The bottom lake was quiet with just a single Mallard 2 Black Headed Gulls and 2 Moorhens. A pair of Ravens flew over calling. Up too the top lake and here 5 Teal were swimming by the right-hand reed bed with 2 more on the opposite bank, the female Tufted Duck 5 Coot and c8 Little Grebe were spread out over the lake. The 3 Mute Swans were at the top end with another Grey Heron. 

Resident Mute Swans - NSL (Bath Birdwatcher)

A Blackbird was on the grass bank and a Grey Wagtail flew up the lake. Walking up to the Keep a Goldcrest was on the ground feeding (unusual) and Rooks flew over as I was by the Keep looking for Hawfinch that I had seen last Thursday but with no luck, I then moved on to another area with Yew trees here I found a beautiful male Bullfinch and at least 3 Song Thrush but still no Hawfinch, after searching the area for half an hour I decided they must have moved on so I made my way back down to the top lake and on the way a Wren flew over the footpath. A Mistle Thrush was in the same tree as I saw one last week and a flock of Long Tailed Tits were working their way through the trees. As I reached the dam end of the lake I noticed a Little Egret at the top end of the lake by the boathouse quite rare here in fact I have only seen one here before. 

Little Egret - NSL (Bath Birdwatcher)

Nothing more until back by the cottages and here were several House Sparrows.

Mallard - NSL (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