Park Wood and Grove

Given the forecast of bright sunny weather I wanted to go to Dunge however the need to be home by early afternoon meant I had to stay a little more local so I decided to have another go after lesser spotted woodpecker.

I arrived at Park Wood at ~ 7.45am. Straight away I could hear nuthatch and marsh tit calling as well as the more common tits. Given the light wasn’t good enough for a picture I decided to ignore them and walked up into the wood.

Almost immediately I found a gold crest and soon after a common buzzard flew across the tree tops. I then searched the areas where I’d previously seen the lesser spots but no. Last year I’d found a lesser spot excavating a nest hole but after a few days work it was chased off by a great spotted and I’ve not seen them here since.

 I did find several great spotted woodpeckers including one drumming enthusiastically. Also seen during this search were tree creeper and a pair off bullfinch.

No sign of thrushes at the top of the wood today but as I dropped back into another clearing there were more marsh tits one of which was out in the sun just long enough to fire some shots off.

Marsh Tit

Around 9.30 the sun went in and the birds went quiet so I gave up at this time and drove over to Grove.

When I arrived at Grove the hide was full – the sun had really brought the photographic brigade out of the woodwork. We all sat patiently but there was little to see. The kingfisher posts were watched with keen interest by all except a kingfisher.

Kingfisher post

In the 90 minutes I was there 3 marsh harriers went past (all distant) and there were the normal ducks  – mallard, pochard (2), tufty(1) wigeon(1) gadwall and teal but nothing else – no hen harriers or bittern.

There were also some teal close to the hide but for most the entire session they were asleep though a female woke up and had a flap before settling down to sleep again.

Teal

I gave just after midday – quite disappointing all in all given we the weather forecast for the next few days.