Potteric Carr
From St Catherines Copse overlooking Huxter Well Marsh
I thought it would be nice to take J&G here for their first visit. Lying a gnats off the M18, we had our tickets in hand in under an hour. After George had made his first 'visit' we stepped into the reserve and were met by a chorus of bird songs. Bliss. There are feeders immediately outside from the centre, hence the frenzy of activity both from the birds and Georges camera clicking away. We headed south along the Green route hoping to see some elusive Redpoll. It was not to be. Things were quiet until we got to the field centre. Yet again another feeding station saves the day! Siskin and Chaffinch mainly this time. The Siskin in particular remained quite close as we made our way into the hide there. I'm beginning to wonder that if they put all the feeders in the carpark we could see all the birds without getting out of our cars! We never see the Bittern anyway! But we would miss all the lovely scenely and meeting other birders. Where the Red route snakes off from the Green and Mothers drain flows under the railwaylines we saw the Kingfisher. It was at the far end of the tunnel on low shrub in midstream. Several times in a single movement it left its perch, grabbed a fish and returned in a flash. Then after feeding it settled down on a pipe support halfway along the tunnel.
The tunnel as you can imagine was very dark so I think George got a really good picture. At least you can tell it doesn't look like a Pintail!
We followed the railway track south and had lunch in the isolated hide overlooking Huxter Well Marsh. I liked this viewpoint the best despite the appalling path to get to it. It was less sterile than most of the other ponds. There was movement all around, the Lapwings and Plovers being responsible for most of it. Inevitably we ended up in the hide overlooking Piper Marsh. It was standing room only. A Bittern had been seen earlier, yeh right, and we were told a Pintail could be seen. Something was there all right but wether it was a Pintail or a Parakeet we couldn't be sure. We waited for it to make a move. We waited till it was time to move on. The 'Pintail' made its move. Or as I should have said, the Teal made its move. Just goes to show, never take anyones word for something, confirm it for yourself. The Yellow route took us back to the carpark after we got our refunds for not having seen, Redpolls, Bitterns, Little Egrets and Pintails. Oh, I forgot to mention the Caspian Gull. Yes we saw old Caspar and that made everything just fine!
CASPIAN GULL*, Kingfisher, Siskin, Chaffinch, Reed Bunting, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Shoveler, Teal, Grey Heron, Gadwall, Shelduck
No comments:
Post a Comment