28 August 2010

A cloudy morning with sunny intervals, wind was a strong north/northwesterly, temp was a bit warmer than yesterday at 13c, visit from 06.10 - 08.55.

A busy day, with visits to Blithfield, Branston GP and Belvide straight after Westport, hence doing the blog so late tonight, Grey Heron was on the boating lake along with 5 Great Crested Grebes (3 juveniles), 5 Teal, 1 Mute Swan and a single Shoveler, probably 'Sammy', the Mute Swans have dropped in numbers with only 19 on the main lake, also present another 8 Great Crested Grebes of which 2 were juveniles, 4 Teal sent over from the boating lake, Tufted Ducks have dropped to 65 nearly 40 down from earlier in the week, good numbers of House Martins were again over the top of the main lake although not the numbers of the previous days, probably around 100+ among them Swallows and couple of Sand Martins and 3-4 Swifts, after yesterdays big Willow Warbler count just a couple were heard today with 1 on the nature reserve side of the main lake and another on the sewage works area, Chiffchaffs were everywhere with over 30+ present just about everywhere you turned.

The Green Woodpecker was again heard at the top of the nature reserve along with a Coal Tit and Great Spotted Woodpecker, the later was seen again later on the sewage works, 2 Willow Tits were by the top pool and a Treecreeper, on the gas works at the top by the railway line a juvenile Bullfinch with 2 Whitethroats, a Jay and 2 Linnets, at least 3 Blackcaps were on the sewage works with a good number of Chiffchaffs, finally back at the top of the main lake a Pochard was seen with the Tufted Ducks.