Marbury Park 21st June 2016

Marbury Park 21st June 2016

Despite not having much time between our Scotland holiday and our Canada holiday, I managed to squeeze in the last day of the birding group term. The had been going to Tittisworth but a recce indicated that it was too flooded to be much good. Accordingly the penultimate date at Marbury Country Park became the last day of the term and we had our sual following term planning session after a walk round Marbury. Although we did not get a large number of birds, nor anything rare, we got some lovely view of familirar birds.

This included the, almost instant, appearnce of, first one Kingisher in front of the reedbed hide, then two and then three. None of these looked like a female so we concluded that it was either a male parent and two young or, perhaps, even three young. They all perched close to each other in an overganging branch and took it in turn to drop down into the water to grab a small fish. We watched this for a long time, only occasionally being diverted by a pair of Reed Warblers and Reed Buntings and a Pied Wagtail hopping around the lilly pads catching insects.

There was not food on the feeder tables so we did not get the usual Nuthatches etc. but there was lots of activity in the bushes around to keep us entertained. We eventually left here and followed the trsil to the left which goes through the reed bed and into the woods at the opposite side. We did see a few birds in the trees but it was quite hard to identify any of them due to heavy foliage and the great number of immature birds.

We came back and walked along the edge of the water but there was actually very little action; no Tufted Ducks, no Black-headed Gulls –  amazingly and, generally speaking, the water was empty except for a few Mallards a couple of Great Crested Grebes Coots and a pair of Swans with their cygnets.

In the woods it was a bit more lively but the foliage made it hard to see anything. The usual feeding station in the woods was entirely oovergrown and there was no food on the tables. It seems like they abandon their feeders over the summer. As we walked away from the feeding station, I stopped to try to locate what sounded like a couple of Jays quarreling. After about five minutes of peering into the woods and getting glimpses, the whole situation becasme clear as a Buzzard broke cover closely followed by two Jays who were chasing it off. We have seen a Buzzard flying through the middle of thees here previously so presumably this is a normal occurence.

As we walked around to the pasture land, which was also very overgrown, we got even better views of these two jays and one came so close as to not need any bins to get great views. We walked around and back to the car park and then headed off to the Spinner and Bergemot for our planning meeting. It was a nice day so we sat outside and, even though there were only six of us, it didn’t take too long to sort out a full schedule. I dare say we will miss a fair amount of it due to more holidays but it looked like a good plan and I hope to make a few of them.

Bird Sightings : Marbury PArk