A walk around Castlemill Sluice/Priory Park, Bedford 2/1/2010

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Hello there

I had yet another walk about the area today.  The weather was sunny, and not too warm.  Still a great day for a walk and some bird watching with the clear weather on offer for us to enjoy.

So we set of about 10am, and headed towards Barkers Lane.  A lot of Tits moving around the trees, and it was not too hard to spot them, as they hoped around the branches.  The Blue Tits moved about and spun around the branches trying to probe the insects from the bark of the Tree 

We reached Barker’s Lane Public footpath at the back of Riverside Tesco's. 

We started to walk along the pathway looking up at the trees to our left.  We could hear and see lots of resident House Sparrows moving along the branches,  They flew in and out of the branches in a little groups here, there and everywhere.  A group of Blue Tits appeared, and then some Long Tailed Tits moved along beside the Blue Tits calling their 3 note call as they flew together in their close knit group.  It was as though they where calling to each other in unison.  One landed on a branch, the next bird landed on the same branch and so on.  So cute to see and hear as they always are.

Lots of small groups of Starling moved about.  Some sat singing from the top most branches of the spindly Hawthorn bushes.  They tried to out sing one another as much as they could.

I thought I heard a 'call' from a Redwing, and it turned out to be Redwing on the move.  We looked at the bird in question, and took a photo or two.  It was eating the remains of the red berries of the tree.  Then another two flew above our heads and into the tree at the opposite side of the path.  Another couple of birds followed and that is the last we saw of them.  We where so pleased to get our long awaited picture, 

There where lots of birds in this one area Blackbirds, Redwings, House Sparrow, Starlings, Woodpigeon. Collared Doves,  and Robins by the dozen.  Simply a great place to see all the regular birds.  A great place, plus a real treat for a bird watcher to get some good photographs too.

We reached the back of Tesco,  and headed up the A428 (heading to the A421). A very obliging Collared Dove stopped to get his picture taken as we walked out of the Tesco's car park by the bottle bank.

We reached the roundabout where the former MFI store still exists.  We past the store, we could see lots more Redwings on the move in the tree branches above.  All of a sudden a large flock of 30 Redwings exploded into the air.  The birds flew in unison from the trees, and berry bushes and into the sky.  They flew above our heads, and headed towards the tree tops at Castle Dairy Farm.

We crossed the road from the old MFI store, and walked up the public path to head through Castle Dairy Farm. We could see that the footpath had been upgraded from before and the place looked quite different.  We could hear lots of tinkling from the groups of Goldfinches in the trees above.  We continued to walk toward Castlemill Sluice.  Once we reached the bridge we could see the water was a lot higher than it has ever been.  The weir was working very hard to control the water.

The small areas of water where we normally could see wildfowl was not all that busy, and lacked bird life.  I think this was mainly due to the very cold weather.  

A large group of Tufted Duck remained together, and one or two smaller groups in other areas of water.  A Cormorant stood in one place on one of the small islands.  As we looked over the river itself a group of Mallards took to flight and made quite a lot of noise about it.  The same birds landed in the nearest area of water they could find - close to the Tufted Ducks away from the Sluice itself.

A lot of Black Headed Gulls moved around in circles landing and then taking off form the water.  That is the only bird life we could see from the Sluice Gate. A bit of a disappointment but there will be other times on doubt in our birding agenda.

We carried on walking along the disused railway to Bedford.  We past the other areas of water connected to the Gravel and Sand pits.  We found all the water to be frozen with ice.  Very little de-iced water was around for the birds to swim about in.  So it made me think of the ‘resident’ birds.  Where are they now having water to swim about in?  Hope that they have their comforts.

A Kestrel flies above the motorway. It goes into hunting mode.  It stops and flies in hovering mode for a minute or two.  Then it gives up, and flies further on to repeat the process all over again.  We head towards the bridge over the motorway.  We see another Kestrel flying in the distance.  It hovered in one place for a few minutes, moved on to the fields to the left of us, and that was last we saw of the bird.  So that was 2 Kestrels at once – great viewing.

I could hear calls of Pied Wagtails as they flew over my head.  They seemed to be everywhere and always on the move as they are.  I could see one sitting on a roof of a house as we past through the area.

I look to the right to see a large bird sitting on top of a spindly branch of a tree. I thought it was a Crow at first but it turned out to be a Buzzard.  The Tree branch looked far to thin for the Buzzard to be perched on for its own comfort. 

Then suddenly a lot of bird calls echoed across to where we stood.  The ‘peewit’ calls from a group of Lapwings.  They started flying up towards the Buzzard from under the same Tree where the Buzzard sat.  The Lapwings then dive bombed, and mobbed the Buzzard so he/she moved on to escape all the attention.  I have never seen that happen before - the things that you see in nature.

We continued on our journey, and now we looked forward to a cup of coffee at the Priory Beefeater Restaurant.  As we walked into the car park, I could hear a group of Long Tailed Tits moving above in the Trees nearby. 

We continued our walk once more. Lots of members of the Tit family around once more.  Many calls could be heard from Great Tits.  The call resounded  everywhere as we walked along the pathway.

The River Great Ouse looked very full in some areas with new some water courses that had appeared all of their own accord.  The Boating Lake was frozen, and contained little bird life at all.  Lots of Black Headed Gulls, and that was about all we could see.  While we pondered on the amount of water in the river, a Moorhen ambled out of a low bush, and took off into the water.  We took a picture of the bird.

The river contained the regular Canadian Geese, Mallard Ducks and Black Headed Gulls.  People where feeding the birds as always.  The birds must have appreciated the handouts as they do. 

We made our way back to the town, and home once more.  We past by another flock of Long Tailed Tits, and this time we got a picture or two of the birds while they moved about the trees. 

That was the icing on the cake for us to end our walk.  Now we are relaxing with a glass of wine.

The pictures will follow next {smile}

Regards

Kathy and Dave