On arriving home Brian sent a text to say he is going to come with us to try for the Swift instead of going to his first choice of Dungeness.
We meet up at 5.30 & it takes just over the hour, when we arrive just a couple of birders are here & they had not seen the target yet, it was only just getting light so it's no wonder there.
After a short while more people arrive & after a few phone calls it appears we need to be a couple of hundred yards up the road to the other Virgin building, so all in our cars to meet up with a bigger group there.
The weather is not good with fine rain had us getting in & out of the car to keep our self warm & even with Lee turning up the bird refuse's to show.
Only being 10 miles from Warnham LNR a Jack Snipe was reported there yesterday, we head there only to find it doesn't open till 10 o'clock, so not a good morning so far.
Just as we are deciding what to do for an hour the warden opens the door & let's us in,( nice fellow)
we pay a small donation & take a short walk to the first hide, we scan the lake for the Jack Snipe but to no avail.
I do see a male Mandarin Duck & a couple of Heron's & Great-crested Grebe plus Tufted Duck .
We move on to the next hide & find that it looks out on a feeding station & is well stocked with seed.
We see many Finches & Tits plus a Great spotted Woodpecker comes to feed, Treecrepper & Nuthatch plus the odd brown Rat & what I think are field mouse are seen running in & out from their nest under some moss covered logs, not to fond of these rodents but still nice to sit & watch them go about their business. A couple of Grey Wagtails & a few Reed Bunting make up the show. A really nice clean reserve that deserves a longer visit.
The pager busts into life to tell us that the Swift had shown up at last, so a very quick 10 minute drive gets us back to be told that the bird had not been seen for a while.
The weather has not improved with the fine rain looking set for the whole day, makes us think it's not to be our day, then we get a great sight of the Swift as it flies in & heads over the car park & goes to roost on the Virgin building.
Everybody heads round the building to locate the bird, it's visible but it's tucked right up under the gutter & although I took some photos the rain made it hard to get anything worthwhile so I delete them. So a good year tick & only an hour from home makes it a good morning after all.
Great spotted |
Just going about it's feeding. |
Just had to save one photo |
No comments:
Post a Comment