Trip reports
A SPRING VISIT TO PENNINGTON COUNTRY PARK
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
The rain had stopped and Tom heard blackcap and chiffchaff calling on the path to the next hide. Eventually we saw and heard them too - spring is here! At the next hide we looked for the long-eared owl that had been reported but all we could see were little grebes, teal, coot, moorhens and a very colourful pheasant on the bank.
We walked round to view the lake from the other side of the first hide. On the way we looked through a screen and saw 2 large eggs that had been abandoned - possibly swan or goose. At the far end of the lake we watched a cormorant for about 10 minutes wrestling with a huge fish which was far too large for it to swallow, or so we thought; he kept diving under the water with it and coming up again still with it in his bill! The gulls were keen to spot this epic battle and about a dozen or more kept circling overhead and then swooping down hoping to get a free meal but after about five dives the cormorant came up without the fish. We speculated whether he had given up or succeeded to swallow it underwater! A lone oystercatcher was spotted at the end of a gravel spit and a grey heron flew overhead.
We spotted a buzzard being mobbed by a crow and a kestrel hovering over the field. We walked back down the path to the New hide where we had hoped to see the owl and a lovely man called John showed us in his scope where it was sitting at the base of a tree behind a bush. It was so well hidden we would not have spotted it if it had not moved. A swan and Canada goose were also seen sitting on their nests.
We then had lunch. Afterwards we went to the feeding station and on the way we watched a song thrush a couple of yards from the path eating worms. The feeding station didn't disappoint as we saw male and female bullfinches (the males had brilliant red breasts), chaffinches, greenfinches, long-tailed tits, male and female reed buntings, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, moorhen, robin and magpies. There was a pair of willow tits (Tom told us to look at the white streaks on the wings. This is a good way to differentiate it from a marsh tit which has all brown wings)
We walked round to another hide and watched a little grebe keep disappearing and bobbing up again when suddenly a flash of turquoise flew straight ahead of us and we saw the kingfisher skim over the water and fly into the trees at the far side. Not everyone in the group saw it so we decided to walk round and see if it could be seen at the other side. We didn't find the kingfisher but some saw a jay instead.
In total we saw 58 species.
Thank you to Tom for all his help and leading us on a lovely walk.
Report by Betty Gissing & Jean Hayes
Photo: Chiffchaff