Wet Wet Wet

One of my less interesting days out and it was a bit of a sweet little mystery why I stayed out as long as I did. Had it not been for a family meal at the Sondes Arms in Rockingham I would probably have pulled the plug on the whole business several hours before I eventually did.

I began by walking out through Willowbrook Industrial where a mist kept visibility to a minimum. A welcome party of Siskins was there to greet me into Brookfield Plantation but there was not a great deal of stuff on view. A startled Fallow Deer bolted off and away while a Sparrowhawk speeding low through the woods had a pair of Marsh Tits pitchooing loudly in alarm.

A few from the Jurassic Way near Gretton.

Trying to avoid the horrendous road between the plantation and Gretton I took a new route which supplied views of both Red Kite and Buzzard. A stubble field attracted a good number of Skylarks (CA 50) and a number of other passerines which included Yellowhammers and Chaffinches. On leaving the village via the Jurassic Way I found another flock of Skylarks of holding thirty or so birds and also a small flock of eleven Golden Plovers and twenty five Lapwings.

As I approached Harringworth Lodge Lake the rain began to fall, a light drizzle at first but soon becoming a steady and rather heavy fall. A further good sized flock of passerines was noted in the general area but did not  appear to have attracted anything that interesting. The lake itself had a couple of ice free patches, one had a little flock of twenty two Coots and a couple of Mallards while the other had a solitary female Pochard.

One of two Buzzards near to Harringworth Lodge Lake.

The subsequent walk along the Welland Valley did not provide much by way of interest although the sewage treatment works near Rockingham did have the usual Grey Wagtail and a couple of Pieds for company. Other birds did include a good number of Lapwings feeding in the fields between the road and the river and also large numbers of winter thrushes. Last bird of any interest was a Kestrel which looked as if it was trying to stay out of the rain, wish that I could have done the same!