Date: 1st January 2022
Time: from 8:45 a.m.
Weather: dry, sunny, light wind, 13°C to 14°C
The first day of the calendar year is always a big day for birders since year listing commences.
During the first Covid-19 related lockdown, Gloucester Park became one of my regular local patches together with the area around St. Nicholas Church and Noak Bridge Nature Reserve.
Whilst I have continued to visit the other sites on a regular basis, I ceased visiting Gloucester Park due to the level of disturbance, littering and other anti-social behaviour.
This was my first visit since 7th April 2021. Given that there was no public transport meaning that I had to stay local, I decided on Gloucester Park as my New Years Day location since it offered a greater range of habitats and the prospect of a larger species list than my other 2 local patch sites.
It was a sunny and dry morning with an amazingly mild temperature for January, especially compared with my visit last April when the temperature was -1°C to 1°C.
There were several highlights to my visit this morning with the most notable record being a female Tufted Duck on the main lake. I have only seen this species at Gloucester Park once before, a male recorded on several occasions in 2021.
The other highlights from my visit were a Grey Heron perched at the side of the small lake near the housing development, several singing Robins and a singing Song Thrush.
With regard to water birds, I saw the following scattered across the main lake and the 2 smaller lakes: an adult and immature Mute Swan on the main lake plus 5 flying over shortly after I arrived on site, 23 Canada Geese, c.30 Mallards, 4 Coots and c.30 Moorhens. The Coot count was much lower than usual whilst I have never seen so many Moorhens. Surprisingly, there was not a single Greylag Goose on or around the main lake and Canada Geese numbers were lower than usual.
In addition, there were 7 or 8 Cormorants perched in the tall trees on the island in the main lake or fishing in the lake itself. A single bird perched in a small tree close to the edge of the lake and allowed an uncharacteristic close approach which enabled me to photograph it.
With regard to mammals, I saw a single Grey Squirrel near the small lake at the eastern end of the site.
Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):
Grey Squirrel
Here are some photos from my visit:
Photo: female Tufted Duck
Photo: male Mallard
Photo: Grey Heron
Photo: Mute Swan
Photo: Mute Swan
Photo: Canada Goose
Photo: Canada Geese
Photo: Black-headed Gull
Photo: Cormorant
Photo: Cormorant
Photo: Cormorant
Photo: Robin
Photo: Robin
Photo: Grey Squirrel
Site totals to date (2022 totals in brackets):
💚🦆 🦉🦋🐝🦊🦡🌼 🌳💚
Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature
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