Trip reports
Bushy Park
Sunday, 7 January 2007
It is always nice to see old friends and we were pleased to welcome some new faces this time as well. Each year the Rose Ringed Parakeet chorus appears louder and this year was no exception, with birds in evidence through out. Our route takes in the duck feeding lake before passing a known tawny owl roost ( No luck this time ), but we did find a female kestrel in a nearby tree. A reed bunting and a meadow pipit was also found. Crossing the road towards the wooded gardens we spotted three mistle thrushes who appeared to be disputing a collection of mistletoe plants.
In addition the first of our many great spotted woodpeckers was found and a nuthatch put in an appearance. Inside the gardens the bird life was not as active as we had hoped. We did find a range of common birds to start the year list; blue, great and long tailed tit with carrion crow, jackdaw,
jay, magpie, pheasant and a grey heron. Surprisingly we did not find a single finch all morning. On route we passed several small lakes that contain a number of captive wildfowl, but we are allowed to add coot, moorhen, canada goose and mallard on the list by our ever strict leader. ( The red created
pochard, cape teal, mandarin ,egyptian goose and even the pochard and gadwall were all disallowed ). Returning to the car park for the ever popular list check we spotted a common gull among the numerous black headed gulls. In total 33 different species were seen.