Trip reports

Field trip to the Forest of Dean - Sunday March 13th

rspb images

Sunday, 13 March 2011

On Sunday, March 13th 10 of us visited the New Fancy Viewpoint in the Forest of Dean to look for Goshawk. The day was a cracker, the air just pleasantly cool but the sun warm on our faces.
When we got to a spot where we could look out over the forest there were several common buzzards soaring in the sky. Then away in the distance over a so poetically described "tump" of dead pines one goshawk could be seen displaying. This kept drifting from view below the skyline and then reappearing. A perching goshawk was then found in the trees below us, so a battery of 'scopes was trained upon this individual. Then two goshawk over flew us showing all their distinctive fieldmarks. The question now was, did we see three or four individuals? Definitely three - one perched and two in the air and possibly four.
From New fancy we went to the Speech House and were lucky to spot 2 hawfinch on the ground under a holly bush. It was generally fairly quiet with nuthatch, chaffinch, robin, song and mistle thrush and blackbird all seen.
After a second look round after lunch we went to nagshead reserve - some to successfully look for the mandarin duck on the pool. In the upper hide a pair of siskin were seen but little else new. It had however been a good day with target birds and warm sun.