My family are all mad keen on dinghy sailing, which means many weekends are taken up with them racing or training at their club. Happily, the club is based in the Cotswold Water Park, and so while they’re all getting wet and tearing around in boats, I get to spend time finding out what birds are around this, and the adjacent, lakes. It’s a really good habitat for both waterbirds and lots else besides; and in winter the numbers of wildfowl (especially Wigeon) can be very large. The hedgerows around the lakes can also be very productive for finches, tits, and other smaller passerines. The occasional military aircraft taking off from nearby RAF Fairford doesn’t seem to put the them off for long!
I spent about three hours there today, checking out pits 125, 126 and Whelford Pools. I counted 168 Wigeon, at least 100 Coot, four Teal, an impressive gang of around 30 Shoveler, probably 70+ Gadwall, three Goosanders, forty-odd Cormorants, and a similar number of Tufted Duck. Off the water, a single Green Woodpecker, plenty of flocks of Goldfinches, a single Redwing, a Goldcrest and the usual gaggle of mixed Blue, Great and Long Tailed Tits kept things interesting. Overall I recorded 34 different species, which compares well to the 19 I recorded in the woods yesterday.
The light wasn’t great for photos, but I did manage this slightly atmospheric snap of Whelford Pools. Any attempts at photographing the birds themselves were epic fails, sadly!
No comments:
Post a Comment