Slimbridge 10? Devon 23?...... after the Lord Mayors show 1!

As I exceeded my word entitlement last week, I had to carry over the QI items. So, I am doing them at the beginning!!

Simons Trivs

In his varied working life, my brother Simon was an occasional coach driver, and when we go to see him in Brixham, we invariably get the courier treatment in his beautifully maintained XJ8 4litre Jaguar round part of South Devon. These are examples of the snippets from our tour guide!

Starting with the top birding spot of Berry Head, Berry Head lighthouse is reputedly the shortest lighthouse at only 16 feet high. But if you add the depth of the weight that holds the rotating light, in a shaft 148 ft deep, it becomes the tallest.

Newton Abbot Racecourse.  Apparently this is the only UK racecourse in which Prince Charles in his short racing career, stayed on board for an entire race.

The Church of Our Lady is a catholic church in Brixham. It is unique as it has a car park on the roof. This can be seen on YouTube.           

In 1847, the vicar of All Saints church in Brixham, Henry Francis Lyte, wrote the words of “abide with me” a hymn sung at sports matches throughout the world. He died in the same year that he wrote the hymn.

           

And now to some Hornifology!!

Another snippet from my favourite nature writer in the Daily Telegraph. I think we have all heard that the Wren is the most common UK bird, in fact with 11 million ….. PAIRS!… that’s 22 million wrens.

The top 5 common birds include Chaffinch, Robin, House Sparrow and Wood Pigeon. Yep, I have all of these in my garden.  But the species with falling breeding numbers sadly includes perhaps surprisingly Chaffinch, Lapwing and Oystercatcher. Not surprising is the Turtle Dove with a breeding reduction from 75,000 pairs in 1997………. declined to just an estimated 3,600 to-day.

I told you in my last blog, almost entirely about Slimbridge, about the demolition of the Holden Tower hide and it’s replacement by an ultramodern bird hide, and a blog follower asked about the name Holden.

My research indicated that The Holden Tower was built 54 years ago in 1966 with a generous donation by Mr Duncan Holden in memory of his father, Mr Peter Wood Holden who died in 1965 aged 92. The son wanted the observation tower to be erected in memory of his father, close to the sea wall with views over the Dumbles and Rushy Pen, which indeed it has.

I suppose when I told you about the cracking 10 days that I reported in my last two posts, with 33 species, it’s a bit of a come down to have a day out and get a count of….Nil., Zilch, Zippo, diddly-squat.  And it wasn’t for the want of trying.

I set off on Tuesday February 18^th and drove to Broomhead Reservoir, NW of Sheffield. 

The target was Crossbill, which I had seen there on 2 out of 3 previous visits. But not today. Some consolation was that it was dry, although water was cascading across the path in places, off the steep hillside filled with fir trees. Those firs were the saving grace, as they were virtually infested with Tits, in particular Coal Tits, and for good measure 2 very visible foraging Tree Creepers. (sounds like the same Tits and Creepers scenario from last week at Haldon Forest but without the Siskins that were prominent there).

I then drove to Old Moor and checked the daily sightings log.  Maybe because of the absence of Amanda, there was nothing reported to get out of bed for, so after a quick snack I drove the 7-roundabout journey to the Old Moor satellite site at Adwick upon Dearne.

I’d been there twice before with varying success, and the RSPB website reports indicated that both Partridges had been sighted… but not by me. It was a nice walk with large areas of water to scan, no doubt enhanced by the recent rain. 3 Little Egrets and good numbers of lapwing and Greylags, but sadly not what I wanted to find in the bushes – Fieldfare, Brambling, Redpoll etc. 

Sunday 23^rd February, I spent the morning at Carsington.

By the way, a new parking system starts at Carsington on the 25^th February. Your cars’ arrival and departure are logged by Big Brother, and you pay for your time calculated when you leave.  I have no doubt that takings will increase, because there are sadly too many incidents of non-payers, and the exchanging of tickets with unutilised time. These will not happen with the new system. 

From a selfish point of view I hope that Carsington does not move to paying by credit card only. I encountered this system 2 years ago, in Dorset, at Hengitsbury Head, and not having taken a credit card with me, I could not park = lost revenue to the site.

For those of you who read my blog, I spoke to the centre manager this morning, and he tells me that there are no price increases added to the changes, and also there is a free 15 minutes (not there before) if for example you just want to pop in, say to collect seed from the RSPB, or drop someone off.

There was a fun run on this morning, so the site was very busy at 9.45am. And the wildlife centre was also busy, mainly with scope toters hoping to see the Jack Snipe. According to Simon Roddis, there were 3 on Horseshoe Island yesterday, but nobody had any joy today whilst I was there. As you will see below, probably because they have been flooded out.

Birders did see 3 Curlews that dropped in, and there was a loud "heads up" to catch the passing Kingfisher, and one chap and I both saw the Sparrowhawk disappearing into the woods at Shiningford North creek.

Finally, a Carsington Water view that I have never seen in 21 years…  yes it really is.....  Horseshoe Island, with a 100% full reservoir….and more water to come??

 Happy Birding.