Trip reports

Horton Country Park

Tuesday, 19 December 2006

Horton Country Park is our local patch, so there was high expectation for a successful morning's bird watching, despite the thick mist that prevailed all morning. We toured the park in a clockwise direction, leaving the car park and keeping to the edge of the polo field. We quickly spotted blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit, magpie, robin and rose ringed parakeet. As we passed the fields of the Horton Country Farm we added blackbird, pied wagtail and meadow pipit. Turning left we followed a smaller path edged with berry bearing bushes which harboured a large party of redwings. Indeed we seemed to find large numbers of redwings wherever we looked from now on. We paused to look at an avenue of mature trees in the hope of finding a little owl ( not showing today ) but we found a tree creeper and three yellow hammers. Moving on we reached the woods at the Ruxley Lane end of the park where Ian, our leader for the day, gathered our small party of 7 next to a mature Scots Pine. 'Look up' he instructed and roosting in the canopy was a beautiful tawny owl. The location was given away a few days before by some jays that were mobbing the owl loudly. Two members of the Lower Mole Project who were coppicing nearby also shared the stunning view offered through the scope of this magnificent bird. We continued by inspecting the ponds by the golf course adding goldfinch, moorhen, coot, heron, Canada goose and our first fieldfare of the day.

We also found a roe deer in the reed beds. Returning back towards the car park along the edge of the new housing we added song thrush, green woodpecker, goldcrest, wren, a stock dove, a large flock of starling and a fine male kestrel to our list, as well as spotting several other roe deer. In total we saw 36 different species during a most enjoyable morning.