Blackleach Country Park

Common tern

It was another of those days that start sunny then bode very dodgy so I decided on a short walk round Blackleach Country Park. By the time I arrived it had become a typical late February day so it was nice to see some heralds of Summer about.

Lesser black-backs

A pair of lesser black-backs cosied up to each other on one of the rafts on the lake while fifty or so of each of sand martins and swallows hawked low over the water. Most of the couple of dozen black-headed gulls were loafing about on the water but a couple of second calendar year birds (identifiable by the brown tips to their wing coverts) were intent on chasing three common terns around every time they came near.

Blackleach Country Park

A pair of great crested grebes had five youngsters in tow and they made sure to stay well away from any of the gulls. Ditto the mallards at the other end of the lake. A raft of tufted ducks looked fitting for the wintery weather.

Blackleach Country Park

I strolled down the path to the motorway then took a path through the woodlands which reintroduced my boots to the wonder that is mud. Luckily it's been such a dry few weeks that the underlying mud was still set like concrete so it wasn't too bad underfoot. Although there were plenty of resident woodland birds about there wasn't any sign of any warblers, even the chiffchaffs were having none of it. 

Some of the woodland paths were better than others

I encountered the first warbler of the visit when I got back to the lake in the pouring rain. A sedge warbler was gamely singing from the reeds though it was soon put off by the weather and ran for cover. Having less sense than a sedge warbler I scanned about trying to find it. As I did so my eye was caught by a couple of birds flying about the lake. Dark, chunky looking Calidris-type sandpipers, but which? Luckily they got into formation with one of the swallows which gave me a sense of scale and I could be certain they were knots, their plumage somewhere between their Winter greys and their rusty breeding finery. They kept flying about, settling for a moment then taking flight again, I lost them as they flew over the other side of the lake.

The sun came out though it still continued pouring down but this was enough to persuade the chiffchaffs to start singing. I looked at the weather the wind was blowing in, took the hint and sloped off for the bus.