17th February

Regent’s Park

I had hoped to be out in the park at 7.30am on a beautiful crisp sunny morning. Wrong the forecasters had got it wrong yet again. If the sun had risen at 6.30am I might have been in luck. When I had ventured out to collect the papers the skies above my lodge were clear, but south towards the Thames was an ominous bank of cloud. I hoped it as heading away from me, no such luck even though the weather vein on the zoo was pointing towards the south-west the cloud (low mist) was coming from the south. It soon obscured any glimpse of the sun, that eventually showed itself again at around 9.00am.

I was in the park by then, with camera in hand hoping the weather would be bright enough to use my x2 converter to good effect. I was heading for the area 9 via the rail ditch. Area 9 is a good place to stand during the early part of the day as the sun if shining is behind or to the left of you. You are then looking at a large piece of sky from the SW to the NE. A good direction to see any early moving Kites or Buzzards.

In general the birds seen are the species that you would expect to see at the moment.

 

Great crested Grebe: a pair were looking for a potential nest site by area 7.

Little Grebe: 2 birds were trilling.

Grey Heron: at least 18 birds holding nesting territories and possibly 6 others at locations they may want to try and build a nest. These however in my opinion look unsuitable, we will see who is the best judge.

Water Rail: one in area 2.

Great Black-backed Gull: a female on one of the pst in the lake.

Great Spotted Woodpecker; several males were chasing each other in areas 8 & 9, 30 & 31, 25 & 26.

Firecrest: a female loosely associating with a small party of Long-tailed Tits in the grounds of The Holme between 9.20am and 10.30am. She was just to quick for me to focus on.