Thursday 10 May 2012

Kingsbury Water Park.











Even though the weather forecast wasn't hopeful for today, I decided to risk a trip to Kingsbury Water Park, which was a wise decision because there wasn't one spot of rain during my visit, it was also a very wise decision for a Great Crested Grebe chick who had strayed from one of the large pools and gone down the water overflow and was  making a distress call and frantically trying to do the impossible and swim back up the oncoming flow and to make it back up the overflow, I didn't see it actually go down the overflow but being as it was trying to go back that way that's what must have happened, so I, along with the help of a passing female helper, managed to scoop it out of the water and take it half way down the pool and release it, where upon it started making the distress call and swimming back in the general direction of the overflow but was met halfway with what was presumably one of it's parents, so hopefully it was a happy ending for the little chap or chapess. That was obviously a  highlight, in the end, so was hearing and seeing plenty of Sedge Warblers, a great little bird with a great variety of song, I also love the black streaks on the back, in the right lighting conditions they are very striking. Talking of great singing birds, how wonderful is it to hear a Blackcap in fully fledged song, it always a pleasure to hear them. Another pleasant sight was seeing a Greylag Goose chick in amongst the twenty or so resident Greylags by the children's play area. It's not every day that I see a Hobby either, this one was circling over the field mentioned later on in this post and the river, no doubt after some unsuspecting Swallow, House Martin or the many insects about today. Birds spotted today were, Hobby, Sedge Warbler, Blackcap (male and female) House Martin, Swallow, Swift, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Dunnock. Wren, Robin, House Sparrow, Starling, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Woodpigeon, Blackbird, Grey Heron, Cormorant, Mute Swan, Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Great Crested Grebe, Mallard and Coot. There was also the flollowing chicks, Great Crested Grebe (1) Greylag Goose (1) and Gosling (9) as well as the following birds on the nest, Coot (2) and Canada Goose (1). On the last visit here nearly three months ago there was some markers in the huge field on the entrance I use into the park, so I thought they'd sold off the land to some contractor or the like but fortunately it was just for some fencing to keep some horses in but also now has the added spin off that it is now used by the Mallards and Canada Geese to eat the grass or just chill out without being pestered by pesky humans. The water levels on the adjacent River Tame have obviously risen dramatically since my last visit which will be good news in the long run but unfortunately not at the moment for any nesting birds. While I was in the area, I also had a walk up to the Kingsbury Parish Church, but unfortunately it was locked, but in the kirk yard I did hear, but not actually see, a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Song Thrush.

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