In the morning I left the house just after 9am, planning to cover the lodge area in search of my target bird. I'd picked up on a Great Spotted Woodpecker almost immediately behind Warren Hill, and the usual three tits and finches*. A single Goldcrest was high up in one of the trees, as was a Nuthatch.
Before going much further, a small black and white bird flew nearby me just past the Triangle and within sight of the Three Ponds. Amazingly, I'd found my first Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (a male) within 15 minutes of leaving the house and without getting even half-way to the lodge. Unusually for me, I had the video camera ready to go with a scarce bird hanging around for me to film it [see right]. I managed a few minutes of footage whilst hiding behind a nearby tree and it seemed quite happy to stick around the area, regardless of several dog walkers passing close by. Despite getting quite a bit of footage, various branches seemed to prevent the camera focussing on the actual bird, and only a few frames were reasonable enough for stills. Only after filming it for a while did I hear it drumming, but I'd lost sight of it by that point.When I decided to move on (the woody was sticking around), I followed a Great Spotted Woodpecker for a few minutes. As I headed back to the path, with the aim of heading to an area of farmers' fields, another birder who I'd not met before came along with his dog. I told him about the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and we spent about 20 minutes trying to relocate it as he'd not seen one in a few years, but we had no luck. We only heard it drumming a couple of times. In the meantime I'd picked up at least one other Nuthatch.
I walked on around the park with the birder I'd met for the remainder of the walk. He was telling me all about the local RSPB group and some of the other local birders, which I'd already met or heard of, allowing me to put names to faces. On the way home, I spent a few minutes watching two Treecreeper conduct an in-flight chase of each other in spirals around a tree trunk - very entertaining. Also, I picked out a rather odd looking Long-tailed Tit, which had no tail feathers!
In the afternoon I headed down to the Mill Lakes via the Pit Tip to add some more birds to the reasonably good list from the morning. This began with two Green Woodpecker on fence posts of the Pit Tip Plantation, making a hat-trick of woodpecker species for the day. Dawson's Corner lived up to its reputation in producing Redwing, and the Substrans path to the lakes showed a good-sized group of House Sparrow on the fence of the industrial park.
There was no sign of the usual Greylag Goose in its usual spot, nor any Grey Heron either (probably too late in the day). I did manage a Wren in the bushes that overhang the water by the bridge though (a bird I'd missed from my morning walk). Walking anti-clockwise, a pair of Bullfinch were in the trees surrounding the Dipping Ponds, but they weren't keen on being filmed. The first viewing area didn't show much at all, as there were no Cormorant or Grey Heron around, only the usual ducks. However, the number of Tufted Duck seemed to have increased recently (now circa 30).
At the Peninsula I found the Greylag Goose (well, maybe the usual one), but it was now in a pair! I checked the view to see two Great Crested Grebe and then another showed up to make it three, as I'd picked up an odd looking duck/goose coming towards the peninsula from the far side. A few drake Teal were on the far side with one female. The odd bird turned out to be an Egyptian Goose (a patch tick!) and decided to join a group of Mallard and Coot. After a bit of clumsy footage [see capture] it was time to move on.The water was looking quite muddy today and the level was quite high. The Mud Island was pretty flooded and there was no sign of the Snipe (or anything else) there today. I headed up to the Leen Pastures without seeing anything of interest on the way.
The Water Meadow, was living up to its name, as much of the field was flooded. The feeder at the feeding station was hanging below the table; it looked as if the branch holding it had been broken in the recent strong winds. Plenty of birds were still feeding there though, with good numbers of Blue Tit, Great Tit and Chaffinch on the table and a single Robin. A Sparrowhawk was battling with the wind coming from the direction of the Golf Course and heading east. I decided to try the views from the Railway Line, which proved quite productive.
Sitting on the edge of the Railway Embankment just past the feeder, I had reasonable views of the area and picked out another pair of Bullfinch and a small group of Lesser Redpoll in amongst the Chaffinch and Goldfinch. Just before starting back a pair of Willow Tit appeared, but disappeared just as quickly when the camera was turned on.
The brisk walk back from here took about 35 minutes (that has to be a record!), but before leaving the Mill Lakes I managed to find a pair of Little Grebe on the far side of the lake and three Cormorant were flying south overhead. Despite the falling light, I managed better views of the Redwing Dawson's Corner. One thing of note today was that some birds certainly seemed to be showing a stronger breeding plumage; most notably the Great Crested Grebe, Willow Tit and Bullfinch, where the females also seemed to be darker. The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker has to be the bird of the day, due to it being an absolute life tick and giving such good views. However, the Egyptian Goose was also notable, as were many of the scarcer birds showing strong colouring. Aside from the life and patch ticks, a total of 43 species is my best record to date.
* Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and Chaffinch
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