I haven’t been down to the river for a while and I also missed the walk and talk about the Hedgerow in Spring on Saturday morning (13th April). The next one is 4:00am for the Dawn Chorus. ANyway, on Saturday afternoon 6th April I went down to the river. On the way down the new tarmac path I spotted a ball of mossy fluff – a nest that was still being added to by a pair of Longtailed Tits.
I watched the birds disappear inside the nest with so that only the tip of their tail was sticking out but they were too fast to get a clear shot of.
Just a few yards further on I spotted a lone Redwing.
Along the river there were quite a few Robin singing, with Bluetits, Great-tits, Wrens, and an elusive Chiffchaff across the other side of the river.
I watched a Treecreeper for a few minutes but it was not easy to keep track of it because of the number of lolloping dogs around. Their owners stopping to talk about what I was looking for was not an issue – however their dogs running around the undergrowth sticking their noses into everything soon scared things away.
Of course we must not forget the other things that are using the nature reserve. I hope to gather photos of many of the things in the reserve. My flicker group for the photos of the reserve will hopefully keep growing.
This is Lesser Celandine growing.
And dwarf Daffodils that have probably been planted by someone.
At several places there seemed to be Wrens calling to indicate their territory. By listening you could almost draw lines to mark their areas.
The reserve is probably the first place I saw a Goldcrest and for a while now I have been hoping to get decent photos of this tiny bird. I finally managed it only a week or so back when one was happy to show itself in the garden. This one was also quite happy for me to get close to it. I have posted a few more shots on flicker if you want to see them.
As in previous years I could hear rather loud Chiffchaffs across the other side of the river but on this day I managed to get sight of this one on my side of the river. It seemed to be putting out a very subdued call. It did not seem to be trying to draw attention to itself.
It is a shame about how much brightly coloured plastic there is trapped in the low tree branches but that stretch of the river is still beautiful.
I had decided to head for home but in typical style something presented itself. As I walked past the path that leads up to the pond and the new admin block for the reserve I spotted a Heron perched on the handrail of the bridge. It flew off to the far corner of the pond where very quickly it had speared an enormous fish (enormous for such a small pond). It looks like a Pike to me. There are more photos of this on flickr.
It made a couple of attempts to get the fish the right way round for swallowing but it looked a bit big to me. It put the fish down and seemed to peck at it a few times but it was quite well hidden from me by then. It was also spooked a couple of times. Once it flew to the other end of the pound with the fish but then it flew past me without the fish.
I then had to head off for home – this is the last shot of it as I left.
Leave a Reply