One of the problems I had found of late is that before the clocks changed to BST it was still dark when I got home from work! so I’ve been finding it difficult to get out and about as much as I would like. I have however found a solution; a friend lives in the countryside near where I work, and the land owner has given me permission to wildlife watch in one of the fields 🙂 They often see Roe Deer, hear Tawny Owls and occasionally see Barn Owls; so I am going to start visiting regularly – it will still be light when I get there!
My first visit was last week. I got there half an hour after I finished work which gave me about an hour to wander. I could see there were 25 Mute Swans on the other side of the field so headed their way. They weren’t in the slightest bit concerned about my presence; they just kept on eating the crop – shoots of wheat.
As I was stood watching them I noticed a Buzzard flying around behind me. I followed it in my binoculars, landing in a tree, I then noticed to the right of it was a nest! Now I don’t yet know if it is the Buzzards nest or it was coincidence but I will most definitely be keeping a close eye to see.
Although I didn’t really walk much of the field I could see the track that the Roe Deer have left through the crop and could hear plenty of other birds (my bird song skills are not good enough yet to be able to clearly identify species). I’ll be heading back there this week to have another look around.
I headed to Avalon Hide in the afternoon. On the walk there, there were signs that Deer had been sleeping in the reeds. The hide is currently being used by a Barn Owl as it’s dining room so there are a lot of Starling feathers about! With the sun creeping just above the tree line the reeds seemed like they were made of gold. A great time for a Bittern to appear at the far side of the reed bed 🙂
I headed to the hide. There was a Mute Swan and it’s Cygnets, I then noticed a bird I at first did not recognise and when I finally figured out that it was a Redshank it began showing beautifully by landing on one of the fence posts near to me.
As part of 
The hide was quite busy when I got there with only a couple of seats spare. As people left I moved to a seat with a better view. The girl sat next to me was a regular to the site and amazing at spotting bitterns flying over the reeds, my first proper bittern sighting was thanks to her 🙂 There were plenty of other birds to watch including the incredibly cute Coot chicks.
My lesson learnt for the day is ‘Remember to take the bird book even if you think you won’t need it!’… to the left of the hide there is a feeder that had been topped up that morning. I was fairly sure what I was watching was a Reed Bunting but I doubted myself as I had never actually seen one before. Seeing I had no phone signal I had no way of double checking either.
