Birding Group Visit to Moore Nature Reserve : 11th March 2014

Birding Group Visit to Moore Nature Reserve : 11th March 2014

At this time of year Moore is well known for its Lesser Spotted Woodpecker/s and it is also good for Great Spotted Woodpeckers and Green Woodpeckers so a big hope of mine was to get the holy grail of the hat-trick of all three in the one site in one day. The question was – would we get lucky ?

Well we headed off down Lapwing Lane towards the woods and as we walked we saw Treecreeper and a Sparrowhawk flew overhead. There were Buzzards everywhere in the sky and we also got the customary Kestrel. We got to the usual part of the woods that we find it/them in but with no initial joy we headed off to the Feeding Station. We had only been there about ten minutes when one of our group told us that the Lesser Spotted had been seen so we immediately rushed back to where we had been before and there it was already quite advanced in its excavation of a hole in a tree where we had seen it more than once before. There were quite a few photographers there and with our group and a few other individuals it became quite a throng and we had good – if slightly distant – views of the bird. With scopes, however, we got excellent close views and the bird remained for a long time before flying off – perhaps disturbed by us talking !

We walked on a bit further and turned uphill up to the top of the hill that overlooks Lapwing Lake. All the time there were Buzzards gliding around in the sky and in the trees there were Long-tailed Tits and Great and Blue Tits singing heartily. We stopped off at the viewpoint overlooking the lake and then at the Sedge Hide. At the latter we could see a few Teal and Mallards and Little Grebes. We carried on back to the car park and whilst some of the group called it a day there, a few of us wanted to go back to the Bird Feeders to see if we could get a Great Spotted Woodpecker. We saw a single Willow Tit, Coal Tits, Reed Buntings, Nuthatch, Jay and a single Siskin – a year tick for us. Eventually a Great Spot cautiously edged up to the feeders before eventually giving us very nice views and setting us up for our hat trick.

We reckoned that the best chance was to walk round the side of Middle Moss Wood and come back via the small grassy opening by the Grebe Hide up to the pasture field and then into Dog Wood. We stopped briefly to look over the Birchwood Pool but apart from a couple of Little Grebes and a single Great Crested Grebe it was mainly Black-headed Gull.

We looked in these various places until we came to Dog Field and we could clearly hear a Green Woodpecker calling from the stand of trees to the side of the car park and at the far edge of Dog Field. We edged forwards and could hear it very close but also very unwilling to make itself visible. One of the group saw it fall to the ground but could not find it after that. We spent about half an hour trying to get this last “pecker” but a single Redwing and a couple more Jays were all that was showing.

It was all very frustrating but it’s never a bad day when you see thirty-five species including two Woodpecker species and hearing a third – not quite the holy grail but close.

Bird Sightings : Moore Nature Reserve