27 August 2010

Bright sunny morning with very little cloud, very slight northwesterly breeze, rather cool with a temp of 11c, visit from 06.00 - 07.45.

Quite a quick visit this morning due to going to work for British Waterways at Etruria today, at least 4 Swifts were seen with 3 together at the top of the main lake and later I had a single along the canal, on the model boating lake the usual 4 Great Crested Grebes (2 adults & 2 juveniles) and another 6 on the main lake with 2 being juveniles, also on the boating lake a single Grey Heron and 3 Mute Swans with another 20 on the main lake, at least 200 House Martins were over the top of the main lake and on the wires on the old sewage works, among them were 40+ Swallows and a couple of Sand Martins, a couple of adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls were on the main lake with 94 Tufted Duck, 5 Teal and a couple of Pochard.

Along the nature reserve side of the main lake, the Tit flock was going through, which included at least 3+ Willow Warblers, 7+ Chiffchaffs, 3 Blackcaps and a Great Spotted Woodpecker, on the top pool 1-2 Reed Warblers were in the reed bed, on the old sewage works another 3+ Willow Warblers, 7+ Chiffchaffs, 2 Bullfinches, 6 Blackcaps, a single Garden Warbler and a single Willow Tit, as I made my way down the canal side of the main lake there were singles of Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Blackcap.

Later in the morning Jeff Jones had the Green Woodpecker showing well on the path on the north west corner of the sewage works it then flew over to the old gas works from were it could be heard calling, like Nick and myself this morning he didn't see any sign of yesterday's Lesser Whitethroat or Spotted Flycatcher, but managed to see a couple of Garden Warblers and several Swifts.