Trip reports
Field Trip to Stanpit
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Seven members met at the car park at Stanpit on a windy and sunny morning. We set off along the path towards the visitor centre where we looked out over the harbour to see that there were plenty of waders on some sand spits. We made our way across the headland to over look Stanpit bight and managed to shelter a bit from the wind by some gorse bush's. Looking out over the harbour at the sand spits I found 2 Sandwich Terns, Ann found 2 Turnstones, as we scoped through the waders we found Redshank, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Dunlin, then Ann found 2 Knot as well. It was very good that we had both Bar and Black tailed Godwits in the scopes feeding next to each other, so that this gave us a very good chance to compare the differences between them. Don found a Skylark hanging in the wind and Cliff found a Yellow legged Gull. We could also see high numbers of Coot and Wigeon.
We then made our way off the headland and followed the path clockwise along the river back towards the golf course. As we walked along the path we could hear Cettis Warbler calling from reeds on our left. We came across a gap in the reeds where we could look through and see a inlet of water, at the back against the reeds were a lot of Teal sheltering from the wind. Helen with her new scope, found us our first Kingfisher of the day perched on a dead tree, as we left the gap in the reeds another Kingfisher flew past. We then entered some trees and bush's by the junction of path's, here we got mainly Blue, Great & Long-tailed Tits, from here we took the path that rise's up and skirts around the left hand side of the golf course. We then made our way back through the Leisure centres car-park to the cars.
After we had dinner in the cars we then made our way over to Hengistbury Head for a short walk just to show everyone the sort of habitat there. At the car park we found the parking charges rivalled Weymouth's high prices of one pound an hour, this could put off the group from making Hengistbury a place to visit as a five hour day walking around the Headland would cost five pounds. Hengistbury Head is a very popular place for the people of the area to get out and have a walk
The car park was very busy and as we walked along the tarmac path out onto the Headland, the path was very busy with people .We then followed the tarmaced path for a while and turned right, up a grass path alongside the nature reserve. We then followed this path which runs alongside the reserve. We could hear Goldcrests calling from the trees and then Fire crests could be heard, after looking for a long time most of us managed to view a Firecrest, Cliff also saw a Treecreeper. We then made our way out on to the tarmac path for a short while to over look the harbour. As we made our way back the way we came, Don met his daughter who lives in the area. Along the way back we had Jay, Great spotted woodpecker and Stonechat.
We had a very good day with about fifty species seen or heard . As I already mentioned Hengistbury Head would be very good during spring migration, but the high price in parking we would need to pack the cars full of people. Car sharing possibly in future for Hengistbury Head.
Stan