Bestwall 5th October

A sunny and warm afternoon. Highlights were Common Sandpiper, Cetti’s Warbler and Goldeneye.

From the roadside we walked down the track towards the lake seeing Blackbirds, Chaffinches and Great Tits on the way. The lake was pretty empty except for a few Great-crested Grebe, Mute Swans, Coot, one or two Mallard and some Canada Geese. A Common Sandpiper flew from the shore from where we first looked out over the lake. It settled further along the shore where we watched it for a while. A few Cormorant flew over. A Cetti’s Warbler sang down the path and another answered it. We decided to see if we could see them. We walked to where they were singing from and pished. This worked and we actually got glimpses of one of them. We walked further round the lake and up onto a path overlooking the reedbeds and river. It was very quiet here, but we did see a Peacock butterfly on the river bank.
Looking back at the lake again and scanning through the birds, we found a female Goldeneye and spent a while getting decent views from various vantage points around the lake. Further round and the path moves away from the lake to pass by scrub and fields. We stopped here for about 20 minutes to see what would turn up. At least one Chiffchaff, 2 Goldcrest and a Blue Tit popped into view after a little pishing. A Kestrel appeared and hovered over the fields for a while and Hawker dragonflies and a Common Darter dragonfly were seen. Continuing along by the field edge we pished more Blue Tits, Goldcrest, Great Tit, a Robin and some Long-tailed Tits. As we walked further Gaye saw a bird of prey dash into a tree ahead. After a second it flew off quickly – a great view of a female Sparrowhawk. We also saw 2 Buzzards oaring over some distant trees and one perched on a pylon. As we walked back we saw several Woodpigeons, a few Collared Dove, a Goldfinch and another Peacock butterfly.
Simon Curson