Trip reports

Field Skills Walk

Andy's Kestrel Photograph

Sunday, 15 November 2009

About 16 of us, that iswildlife explorers, parents and leaders enjoyed a sunny afternoon on the field skills walk at Moor Green, led by Mary Wynne-Jones. Starting from the western end of the lakes gave us more time for observing by the bird feeders and from the hide. The bird feeder site was great for observing the smaller birds, blue tits and chaffinches etc. The hide overlooking the lake excellent for viewing the waders, gulls and ducks etc. Explorers were each given the task of compling their own list of the birds. Points were awarded to those correctly identifying the most bird species: helped by their binoculars, the hide charts, and to various degrees by the leaders and parents. Towards the end of the walk we saw a kestrel hovering over a nearby field, dropping to the ground and flying to a tree with a catch. Andy took this photo as it flew by with its prey, possibly a small bird.

After collating all the lists the following 32 bird species were seen duirng the walk and visit to the hide. They were:-

backbacked gull, blackbird, blue tit, canada goose, chaffinch, coot, cormorant, crow,
dunnock, gadwall, great crested grebe, great tit, green woodpecker, heron, kestrel, lesser blackbacked gull,
little egret, longtailed tit, magpie, mallard, moorhen, pochard, robin, shoveler,
song thrush, starling, swan, teal, tufted duck, wigeon, woodpigeon, wren.

Points go to Isabel, Helen (with help from Nikki) and Ben for spotting and correctly identifying 28, 24 and 18 species respectively.