18 March 2011

Was down nice an early this morning at 06.25 and stayed for 3hrs til 09.25, it was another misty start and quite cold with a light ground frost, temp was 4c, although the forecast was for southeasterly winds there was a very light northeasterly blowing.

As I left the house I heard a Siskin flying over as a looked up a massive flock of birds were flying over, looking through my bins I noticed they were Thrushes. probably Fieldfare and Redwing and there was well over a thousand birds in the flock.

First bird I saw was a Lesser Black-backed Gull flying around the car park, there seemed to be some movement going on this morning with well over 20+ flying over north, plus 2 adults on the main lake. On the boating lake the usual pair of Great Crested Grebe plus another 5 on the main lake, I could hear a Chiffchaff calling in the distance and during the visit there were at least 3 birds involved with all coming from the nature reserve, a Jackdaw flew over the grass bank and another 4 flew over later, on the main lake 39 Tufted Duck, 1 Pochard, 1 Goldeneye, 2 Mute Swans, a male Goosander flew into the boating lake and later while on the gas works 2 females flew over heading north and with 2 male and a female on the main lake later there was probably 4/5 birds involved, during the visit 8 Meadow Pipits flew over all heading north, two groups of 3 flew over followed by 2 single birds, a Common Gull came into the boating lake and probably the same bird was later on the main lake, a couple of Pied Wagtails were on the grass bank and several were flying over all heading north over the course of the visit.
In the nature reserve a pair of Teal were flushed from the top of the middle pool and the male Shoveler was also on here, by the top pool a female Reed Bunting was in the reed bed which was a Westport year tick for me, by the top of the main lake a pair of Mistle Thrushes in the top left corner and a pair in the top right corner, now earlier in the morning I was 99% certain I had seen a Little Grebe through the mist at the top of the main lake and a bit later Nick received a text from Richard Sutton confirming he had also seen a Little Grebe, another Westport year tick and although I spent lots of time looking for it I never saw the Grebe again, a single Bullfinch was on the sewage works a couple of Chaffinches around the main lake, on the gas works a single Jay was the 1st one I had seen for a good while and later I also heard probably the same one on the sewage works, a couple of Stock Doves were on the gas works and a Collared Dove flew over the sewage works, as I walked down the canal side of the main lake a Siskin flew over calling, 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers flew over the visitor centre and 2 Treecreepers were in the small wood at the side of the car park.