Trip reports
CADMANS POOL, NEW FOREST - Saturday 31st October
Saturday, 31 October 2009
It was a day for looking up. Birds were plentiful but they were in no mood to stay still and pose. The commonest call was "On the tall tree -oh no, it's just flown!" or "In the 'scope - oh no, just dropped down!" Nonetheless, there was plenty of action in the air to delight a watcher.
There were thrushes in their hundreds. Waves of redwings and squadrons of fieldfares filled the sky above, a continuous stream coming in from Scandinavia, like passengers exiting arrivals at Heathrow. The tree tops were thick with these restless birds, their individual calls softened into a constant murmur, rising and falling. Mistle thrushes showed well and a few song thrushes passed overhead. Blackbirds were plentiful.
Three grey geese flew silently overhead prompting an extended identification discussion. Greylag, or white fronts? It was inconclusive, but the geese were long gone and they didn't care. They knew what they were.
Several Dartford warblers were spotted flying, or rather fluttering, low over the heather, looking as if they had not yet quite mastered the technique. They did give good views of their display flight, but then only teased by perching briefly, low in the vegetation, before hiding away again, unlike the stonechats with which they kept company. They were quite happy to sit up straight and out in the open to be watched, but then everything disappeared when the hunt, which had been in the area all day, came past and the group found itself knee deep in a sea of hounds.
At times during the day hawfinch, siskin, redpolls and crossbills were all heard and then spotted in the air, but all passed over or dived into cover after only the briefest of glimpses.
Underfoot were many varieties of fungi including several small, brightly-coloured wax caps and huge Parasols. A southern hawker dragonfly was spotted as were small copper and red admiral butterflies. During lunch in warm sunshine a fine striped grasshopper took up residence on a resting leg and a magnificent stag held his impressive antlers high in the heather as if waiting for Landseer to arrive and paint him.
Best birds of the day were three grey wagtail, mustard yellow flashing under their long tails as they moved up and down Docken's Water in the wonderful late sunlight, foraging on its stony margins.
So no rare migrants then, nor any stunning views of unusual species, but who needs them to make a day complete when you have all the nature and the wildness of the Forest to savour? It was a day to enjoy to the end, and even back in the car park, dusk gathering and boots coming off, our guide was still plunging into the trees chasing a goldcrest which might have been a firecrest. It didn't seem to matter at all that he was disappointed in his quest yet again.
Over Downton, on the way home, several long wavering skeins of geese marked the sky like a child's scribble, heads down and wings beating a slow rhythm, heading south to their evening roost. Autumn had arrived.
Birds seen or heard. Wren, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, Song thrush, Mistle thrush, Fieldfare, Redwing, Nuthatch, Wood Pigeon, Stock Dove, Starling, Great tit, Marsh tit, Coal tit, Blue tit, Long tailed tit, Meadow pipit, Skylark, Magpie, Crow, Jackdaw, Dartford warbler, Stonechat, Siskin, Redpoll, Crossbill, Hawfinch, Jay, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Green woodpecker, Lesser black-backed gull, Greylag goose, Buzzard, Kestrel, Moorhen, Mallard, Pied wagtail, Grey wagtail, Little Egret.
Reported by Mike Crowe