January

A few bits from January 2023 I haven't shared here yet. 

Longham Lakes was pretty quiet on New Year's Day but there appeared to be an especially large number of cormorants. 

Also present were a pair of little grebes which are always nice to see.

A visit to Blashford Lakes on 21st January provided me of distant views of many, many pintails. I've seen these ducks on occasion but never in the enormous number I saw on this day. Doubting myself, I checked the ID on the boards in the hide and the label said that large numbers of pintails flock to the lakes when the Avon Valley is flooded, which it was after the huge amounts of rain we had in the first half of the month. I can't quite work out why the flooding causing them to come to the lakes though. 

It's difficult to make out a they were all some way from the hide but there loads of pintails in this image

I saw most of the other expected duck species during my visit including some close views of a pochard. 

 

Robins are known for often being quite brave around humans but during this visit to Blashford one happily sat within touching distance of me for some time. This allowed me to get some really close-up shots. 

I also captured a decent view of a redwing. My feeling is that there has been an especially large number of these birds locally this winter though I don't know whether that's supported by proper records or not.

Finally, here's a wren in poor light at Moors Valley last weekend. 

Ringwood, 15.1.23

I did my old walk along part of the Castleman Way near the centre of Ringwood today. I've walked this path many times over the years and I have never seen the river levels as high as they are right now. The fields are just completely underwater. 

 

The flood water seems to have attracted a large number of gulls who are acting like the fields are one huge lake. 

 

Not much else could make use of the fields but I did spot four pheasants who managed to find a slightly higher patch near the path which wasn't underwater. 

There were still plenty of small birds making use of the trees lining the old railway line including both blue and great tits. There were plenty of robins in song too. 

Not far from an industrial estate I spotted a group of three bullfinches (2m, 1f) feeding on the brambles. 

It is also worth noting that I saw my first butterfly of the year today when walking through the town centre-a red admiral. It's likely this individual had been holed up in a building somewhere and was prompted to take to the wing due to the slightly warmer temperatures the sun brought out today.  

Poole Parks, 2.01.23

Every so often I head over to Poole Park which is often interesting for bird life. I tend to park at Whitecliff Park, walk along through Baiter Park until reaching the edge of Poole town centre before then doing a lap of Poole Park's boating lake and then returning back the way I've come. It was a glorious morning on this particular visit. 

At Whitecliff Park there always seem to be quite a few crows and with a new camera to play with I took some decent photos of a couple of them. 

 

 

This winter there seems to be good numbers of brent geese on this side of Poole Harbour. 

This winter there also seems to be quite a large number of oystercatchers around the parks. The recent heavy rain means the grass is quite waterlogged in place which is ideal for them to feed on and also means they are less likely to be disturbed my humans. 

There were a small number of greylag geese in Poole Park- today was apparently the first time they had been seen here for a little while with the overwintering birds returning from wherever they had been. The greylags are being studied and I always try to spot the rings if I can. The only one I could identify today was U062 which is actually the goose which has been resighted the most times in the project and has never been spotted outside of Poole Park.

As usual there were a number of Canada geese on the edge of the car park near the Ark café but amongst them was a single turnstone. It looked quite vulnerable amongst the birds that are many times bigger than it but it was darting around so fast it never really looked like it was in any danger. 

The lake was fairly quiet today with mostly the common birds there but there were two shelducks in the little lagoon.