Trip reports

A bird watching outing

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

We were lucky to have a dry, calm and mild day for our visit to these two new sites for our group. As the weather had been very wet in preceding days, we had warned of muddy paths, but thirteen stalwarts turned out for the meet.
The day was for woodland birding, and within yards of the car park at Gore Glen we had managed to see robin, great tit, coal tit, blue tit, treecreeper, chaffinch, goldfinch, greenfinch, siskin, bullfinch and a sparrowhawk. With such a list should we just head back for an early lunch? No, it was a nice day to explore further. After following the upper path for a while, looking down over the Glen, we dropped down to the Gore Water. On a very pleasant walk beside the river we added to our spots with common buzzard, woodpigeon, wren, and several dipper. Further on we were entertained by a flock of long tailed tit, plus goldcrest, song thrush, magpie, jay and carrion crow. The climb out of the Glen gave us an appetite for lunch, and it was lovely to sit at the picnic tables and watch flocks of tits and finches passing through the trees, and skeins of pink-footed geese flying over.
The five minute drive to Arniston House brought us into a really attractive, mature parkland setting. In the tall trees near the House we added nuthatch to our list and enjoyed good views of groups of redwing well lit as the sun caught the tops of the trees. We again set off on a riverside walk, following the paths through the varied, old parkland trees, trying to identify trees as well as birds, and stopping to watch a rather handsome fox. After zig-zagging across little bridges over the stream we came into the Sunken Garden beside the old walled garden, adding mistle thrush to the day's count, and continued up to emerge facing the spectacular view of the rear of Arniston House. Walking back across the park we saw pied wagtail, blackbird, jackdaw and starling, and then finished off our day by returning to the nuthatches and redwing. We had a really enjoyable day, walking in pleasant countryside, and although our bird list didn't include anything exotic, we had seen lots of woodland birds.
We again want to thank the Dundas family for allowing us to wander around their parkland.