Birding Group Visit to Marbury Park 18th February 2014

Birding Group Visit to Marbury Park : 18th February 2014

We missed the previous weeks birding group visit which was supposed to be to Neumann’s Flash but I believe the weather and a few other cancellations led to the few remaining people able to go, calling it off after sitting in a car for fifteen minutes looking at the rain. Today was much better, though, and it was a lovely warm spring-like day. As if also fooled by a false spring morning, a lot of birds were out singing and we had quite a good morning birding.

We started off at the hide overlooking the lake where we could see large numbers of Great-crested Grebes, all either chasing other birds off or pairing up with another bird. An exchange of fish was seen by one of our group. A Little Grebe roosted in amongst the tree branches in the water. Off to the left a Kingfisher hid away in the willow bushes at the left side of the lake. There was no sight of the Bittern, though.

As we walked along the path we could see a large number of Canada Geese with a couple of Greylags near the. On their own, in another bunch, were about forty Curlew feeding on the grass. Cormorants held position on the posts sticking out of the water and on the water Tufted Ducks and Pochards were the dominant ducks. A single Teal was spotted and I heard a Wigeon. A Little Grebe fed along the far edge of the water and three Buzzards were in the air above.

As we walked along to the bird feeders we saw a couple of Jays and at the feeder there were the usual Tits and Chaffinches. We heard a Green Woodpecker but could not see it. Further along we managed to see two individual Song thrushes though all morning we could hear them singing and there must have been very many in the woods. We also saw a couple of Nuthatches and a Treecreeper.

All in all we saw thirty four species which wasn’t too bad and all because the rain decided to stop for a morning !

Bird Sightings : Marbury Park