Date: 4th March 2024
Time: from 8:45 a.m.
Weather: dry, sunny, light wind, 4°C to 6°C
Due to a self-enforced “stay at home” policy due to recovery from a surgical procedure, I have necessarily neglected both my local patch sites with my first and only visit to Noak Bridge Nature Reserve of the year being on 4th January 2024. It was therefore good to finally visit the site again on a sunny but cold morning.
Compared with my visit to the site in January 2024 which was relatively quiet, there was noticeably more bird activity and bird songs and calls.
I had a very productive visit with 20 species of birds recorded. This included my first record of Jackdaw for the site (a single calling bird flying over Meadow Pond) plus first records of the year of the following 10 species: Goldcrest, Song Thrush, Wren, Dunnock, Great Tit, Goldfinch, Carrion Crow, Mallard, Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull
Apart the sighting of the Jackdaw, other notable records included Mallard (a male and female on Meadow Pond and 2 males and 2 females on Fox Pond), Moorhen (a presumed pair on Meadow Pond and another unseen calling bird on Willow Pond), Green Woodpecker (an unseen calling bird in the wooded area between Meadow Pond and Fox Pond) and Goldcrest (an unseen singing male in the wooded area near the Spanish Steps).
However, the most notable sighting during my visit was a single Common Buzzard flying over in a southerly direction which I saw whilst I was at Meadow Pond. Unfortunately, this bird was beyond the eastern boundary of the reserve and therefore does not count as a site record!
With regard to mammals, I saw a single Grey Squirrel in the trees surrounding Meadow Pond.
Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):
Site totals for 2024 to date (2023 totals in brackets):
Total species list for the site:
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