Bath Birdwatcher

  Another Tuesday and this week for our day out we chose Chew Valley Lake and East Harptree Woods. Being early in the year it’s good to get your year list off to a good start and knowing that 3 of the slightly more difficult species to see had been seen there, it seemed silly not to try for them, there were also another 3 species at Chew that would be good to get early in the year. Our first stop was Herriotts at Chew Valley Lake as we had to pass this point on the way to East Harptree and here, on the pond were Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Mallard and Coot. A Cormorant was stood by the outlet giving a good photo opportunity.  Cormorant - Herriotts (Bath Birdwatcher) A Tufted Duck was another species on the pond, we then heard a strange call coming from the reed bed on the main lake so we walked over to investigate but we never found the culprit but David spotted in the left hand corner between the wall and the reedbed a Great White and Little Egret, and as we were watching 10+ Sn...

  Tuesday again, they seem to come round so quickly. This week we decided to mix it up slightly by starting the day at Herriotts, Chew then visit East Harptree Wood and ending the day back at Chew. Driving to Herriotts Buzzard and Starling were our 1 st sightings, at Herriotts the list started to swell with Mute Swan, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Gadwall, Teal, Pintail, Cormorant and Moorhen all seen. 5 species of gull Black Headed, Herring, Common, Greater and Lesser Black Back all present. Also seen were Great White and Little Egret plus Grey Heron. A more thorough search with the telescopes added Shoveler and Grey Wagtail, Grey Heron and Carrion Crow were flyovers. Next on to East Harptree Wood adding Pheasant on the journey. Tuesday was a very misty day and as we drove up on the Mendips it became quite thick and remained the same at the woods hampering our search for birds so much so that only 3 species were found, Robin, Redwing and Woodpigeon, we were hoping to see Crossbill, Siski...