Date: 1st April 2026
Time: from 8:30 a.m.
Weather: dry, cloudy/bright, light wind, 6°C to 8°C
On
my walk over to the reserve, I saw both a singing male Chiffchaff and a
singing male Blackcap.
Although relatively quiet, my visit to the reserve this morning was productive and included 3 further additions to my 2026 site list: Blackcap, Jackdaw and Dunnock.
Having
already recorded my first Blackcaps of the year at my St. Nicholas
Church local patch site and immediately adjacent to where I live, I was fully
expecting to record my first at the reserve this morning. This proved to be the
case with both a pair seen plus other singing males seen and/or heard.
This year's first record of Blackcap for the reserve is much later than that last year (9th March 2025), although I suspect if I had visited during the previous 2 weeks I would have heard and/or seen a singing male earlier. In the 2 years prior to 2025, my first records of Blackcap were on 20th March 2024 and 8th April 2023.
The notable bird records during my visit were as follows ….
Blackcap: male and female seen together in the woodland adjacent to Willow Pond, singing male seen and photographed in the area at the start of the loop path in the eastern section and a singing male heard in the area behind Meadow Pond (although possibly the same bird as already seen) and another singing male heard in the Thorny Wood area
Chiffchaff: singing males heard in the wooded area behind Willow Pond, in the wooded area between the storage shed and Puckles Pond and in the area at the start of the loop path in the eastern section
Jackdaw: 2 seen flying over the wooded area near the Spanish Steps
Moorhen: 1 seen on Willow Pond
Mallard: 2 seen flying high over Meadow Pond
I also saw 3 Grey Squirrels: 1 in the wooded area near the Spanish Steps, 1 in Thorny Wood and 1 in the trees adjacent to Meadow Pond.
Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):
Grey Squirrel
Here are some other photos from my visit ….
Photo: male Chiffchaff
Site totals for 2026 to date (2025 and 2024 totals in brackets):
Total species list for the site:
Love nature .... act now
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