Brief Encounter

An afternoon visit to Barnwell today, drizzly conditions in the morning put me off the notion of making an earlier saunter. Most of the ponds had some ice cover and this probably pushed the Kingfishers on to the river, I certainly didn't see or hear any sign of them. With the feeders once again absent the view from Lowlands Hide was almost exclusively that of Dunnocks though a few Mallards were hanging around seemingly in the hope that some food might turn up.

Lake view and one of the many Dunnocks.

While there was a lot of bird activity it was mostly of common species with both Green and Great Spotted Woodpeckers again vocal. Only one species of duck other than Mallard was seen and that was a drake Mandarin in the normal spot. The cob swan of one of the two pairs on site is continuing to chase its cygnets around the lake in front of Kingfisher Hide though they seem to be very slow to take a hint!

Barnwell's answer to Torvill and Dean.

Walking around Mill Lake I'd just reached the rushy bit nearest the mill when I surprised an Otter close to the bank. I'm not sure who was the most stunned by the encounter though as the Otter appeared to do a bit of a double take before making a swift departure. I hung around for a while hoping that it might return but on this occasion there were to be no repeats. This was my third Otter sighting at the park this year and the first away from Kingfisher Hide.

Song Thrush and my regular hide companion.

Having walked around all the park's lakes I decided that I'd seen all that I was going to see and so headed off back into town.

Here be Otters (briefly) and Moorhen.