Trip reports

Jubilee Park Local Walk

Thursday, 10 January 2008

On a day when most sensible folk are either at work or at home in the warm, 28 people gathered at the Blackbrook Road car park for a nature walk around Jubilee Park. The sky was heavily overcast and the wind was a strong south westerly; not a good omen for a productive mornings bird watching.
Jubilee Park comprises grassland, scrub and incorporates Thornet Wood, an area of mature woodland, mainly oak. It is sympathetically managed to enhance wildlife by local volunteers and the Countryside Rangers as well as providing areas of amenity use by dog walkers and ramblers. Some fine examples of young layered hedges are present in the park. There is a field and riding stables in the SW corner which is always worth checking out as it attracts herons, winter thrushes and finches throughout the winter months. Seven rather miserable-looking herons were present as well a mixed flock of about thirty redwings and starlings. Black-headed and common gulls were exploring the mud and a lone little egret was seen, by no means a common site in the park. A blackcap was seen by a few of the party - these birds overwinter in Britain and return to Germany to breed in summer and their numbers are growing due to our milder winters.
In the scrubby areas blue and great tits were seen as well as small flocks of twittering goldfinches. Foraging in the long grass redwings and fieldfares were seen often in close proximity so that the size and plumage differences could be compared. The redwings mostly migrate from Fenno-Scandinavia whereas the fieldfares are more likely to have come from Belgium, Holland and Finland. Ring-necked parakeets are an increasingly prominent feature of the woodland areas along with the more common jays, magpies, carrion crows and nuthatches. It took some while to locate a greater spotted woodpecker which is normally abundant; indeed all three woodpeckers can be found nesting in the woods. On the way back robin, dunnock and long-tailed tit were seen and some were lucky enough to see a pair of goldcrests displaying to one another with the male raising its orange head crest to woo the female.
In spite of the threatening start to the day it stayed dry, if somewhat cold. Thirty four bird species were recorded and as a rather mangy fox ambled across the car park, the party dispersed.