Trip reports

Felton Common

Wednesday, 17 June 2009

A good number of us gathered at this new venue and we were very pleased to have Melanie joining us for our morning walk, she led us round the common as it is her local patch (no need to excuse the pun, it was fully intentional!).
Our first birds were a pair of kestrel and song thrush was a welcome sight. On the whole we found a good variety of songsters, whitethroat, willow warbler, linnet and chiffchaff. There was plenty of activity in the small trees and gorse; a skylark with food and stonechat, but our star birds had to be the yellowhammers, five in total, brilliant canary yellow, singing for their 'bread and no cheese', what a treat.
All the while we were constantly reminded of the close proximity of Bristol Airport, amazingly the birds didn't seem to mind at all, we had some close-ups of the undercarriages as they roared over our heads when coming in to land. I noticed the wing-tips were up on one of the larger planes and recalled this is copied from an original design - that of raptors whose wing-tip feathers bend up in the wind, enabling them to remain extremely steady when searching the ground for prey.
A pair of bullfinch were keenly spotted although not seen by all of us. Goldfinch parents were instructing their young in the art of feeding on seed heads and swallows and swifts hawked insects in the grey, rather un-summery sky. Brown silverline moths rested on the footpath, it was just a bit too breezy for any butterflies which was a shame because there is some excellent habitat for them. We all saw a puffin too...(?) a cheery little chap who adorned the tail of a Channel Islands plane!
Our thanks to Melanie Patch for this most enjoyable morning's walk, it proved popular with everyone so I think we shall be re-visiting next year. Rosina Robinson