08 December 2010

As you will see from Steve Seal's photo's a bit further on Westport is rather, white, cold and icy at the moment, still very little water on show and we really do need a thaw soon. I was down for nearly 2 hours this morning, it was very still and sunny and obviously rather cold.

Firstly news from a couple of days ago and Alan Hancock had a female Pheasant in the nature reserve, Pheasants are not very common at Westport and I think this is only the 2nd record of the year, the 1st being a male in March which was seen by myself and heard by Nick Smith, yesterday Nick had a Snipe on the stream and a couple of Teal.

Back to today, a couple of Bullfinches were near the bottom entrance and I had a couple more later by the top pool, there was very little on the boating lake except for the male Shoveler and 4 Mute Swans, at the bottom entrance to the nature reserve a pair of Teal were flushed from the stream and a bit further up another near the boardwalk bridge, a couple of Willow Tits were near the bottom entrance to the nature reserve and a couple more up by the top pool, 10 Redwings flew over followed by a single Fieldfare, a single Coal Tit by the top pool and another along the canal side of the main lake, a Grey Heron was by the bottom pool in the trees, on the main lake with just a small amount of water visible 11 Tufted Ducks, 6 Pochards, 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull, 1 Great Crested Grebe and 4 Common Gulls, very little was seen on the gas works or the sewage works but 4 Jackdaws flew over the sewage works, lastly just a single Pied Wagtail was by the visitors centre.

Later in the morning Pete Lunt had a Snipe feeding on the ice on the 1st pool, I'm gutted about this because this is what I was looking for this morning as I still need it for my Westport year list!

The following photo's by Steve Seal really do give a good idea as too how Westport is looking and faring in this very cold weather.