Every year we say wouldn’t it be lovely to have a proper access road to the reserve, and past years we have made do with a potholed surface that’s rather a challenge to drive down at times! 2016 will be the year that we do something about this and ta-da! We have contractors in this week to do just that! The contractors will lay a tarmac surface from the car park entrance as far as last big oak tree on the recently cleared section up the drive (which marks our official boundary). This will hopefully make the driving experience a bit less bone shaking! As well as a new surface 3 speed bumps are being built in and we are re-marking the two that are by the Aston Villa ground. A new crossing point is being established with the Middleton Hall courtyard, complete with marker posts and painted crossing as well as a more obvious out-of-hours parking zone. Our idea is that it creates a more intuitive entrance to the rspb car park and links nicely with the Middleton courtyard facilities! If you are visiting next week it should all be finished and business as usual!
Contractors working on the access track by K.Thorpe
Sightings wise, the new year started with a couple of Bewick swans which spent the day on North Pit. Unfortunately they were gone by the following day (so I missed them!). And checking out the surrounding farmers fields which had plenty of mute swans drew a Bewick blank. The fields that border Bodymore Heath Lane towards Kingsbury water park often have swan flocks so may be worth checking out if you are driving down there!
Bewick Swans by D.Ball
On the same day, Dave, one of our volunteer wardens was lucky enough to encounter a male smew. It flew onto Fisher’s Mill and spent the next 15 minutes feeding, in Dave’s words’ “ravenous was not enough to describe this little chap” before departing North. Not a regular bird in the valley now, this would have been a very well watched bird if it had stayed!
Smew on Fishers Mill by D.Ball
A male pintail has been spending it’s time on Fishers Mill and was on the Jubilee today along with 2 pink-footed geese. The pink feet tend to hang out with the large greylag geese flock and can be seen on the wetlands or the adjacent farmers fields. The wetlands are very full at the moment, with plenty of wildfowl knocking about including double figure of goldeneye and goosander split between Fishers Mill, Dosthill and North Pit. Despite the amount of water there is still enough land showing for a 100+ lapwing flock, 2 dunlin and on the 2nd Jan a 200+ flock of golden plover dropped by then headed off after being spooked.
The great white egret is continuing it’s nightly routine of roosting in the heronry with the little egrets. It can be almost dark before it comes in, on Sunday it roosted at 4.37pm. Over 40-46 little egrets are also roosting, in the heronry. Watching from the car park tends to be the best as they fly in from the south. They tend to fly in, in ones and twos but as they leave the roost on a morning they fly out in bigger groups. Whilst watching the egret roost there us every chance of the barn owl or short-eared owl making an appearance. It isn't guaranteed, and both owls have also been seen on the wetlands in recent days so could be seen in a number of locations with a bit of luck.