After a fairly lengthy period of neglect, Ufton Fields is very much back on my list of favourite reserves, and I enjoyed another very pleasant walk there this morning.
Plenty of thrushes around - more than a dozen Blackbirds before I had even left the carpark, Fieldfare and Redwing in trees and all over two fields, a couple of Song Thrushes, and at least three, maybe five (might have seen one pair twice), Mistle Thrushes giving great views (as I noted last week, this is quite rare for me, so I was well chuffed with this). The only finches I found were a of Bullfinches (this is a great location for those) and Greenfinches (plenty of those), and there were lots of the other usual sightings - Robins, Dunnocks, Blue Tits, Great Tits etc.
On the Horseshoe Pool things initially looked quiet, but 15 minutes of watching was rewarded with first two, then six Teal (three pairs), a few Mallards, three Moorhen, a couple of Coot, and super views of a Kingfisher which sat by the side of the pool for maybe 10 minutes.
As I left I got to watch two Buzzards and a Sparrowhawk have a brief tete-a-tete. I also learned plenty of new things about the reserve today, but I'm going to save that for another post.
Bird of the day: Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), vivid, exotic, flies like a neon-blue lightbulb across the dullest of days - and yet can be infuriatingly elusive. Never a disappointment when you finally get good views of one.
No comments:
Post a Comment