My second visit to this reserve was with a coach party from RSPB York Local Group on Saturday March 28th. Several pleasant things to note. The first was that the driver of our coach, Andy, was the driver of the 1st coach trip i took to Mull, 22 years ago! Secondly we had 27 people on the coach and thirdly we had a very knowledgeable 9 year old with us!
We left York at 8am and arrived at the reserve at 0945, on our journey we saw several red kites and kestrels. It was sunny but there was a strong wind to face as we walked around the reserve. As there is only 1 hide, we split up into several groups, so that we did not all end up in the hide at the same time.
The group that I was with visited the bird feeding area first and added blue tit, great tit, woodpigeon and pheasnt to our day list. We heard a chiffchaff but were unable to find it. From the top of Nicholson's Hill we could see the "Durham Acropolis", the Penshaw Monument.
In common with many wildlife organisations DWT use ponies to help and this is one of their Exmoor Ponies.
Joe's Pond was our next stop. a chiffchaff was singing and eventually came into view, Mute swans, mallards and tufted ducks were on the far side of the ponds where people were throwing food to them.
We then met another part of our group who had heard Cetti's warbler and seen bullfinches. We walked to the hide overlooking pond 2. From here we were able to see a group of about 30 curlews having a bathe, then during our time in the hide another 2 groups flew in making about a 100 in total.
Tufted duck, wigeon, teal, gadwall, mallard, shelduck and goldeneye were on the water. A large group of herring gulls were on one island with a few lessser black-backs.
Barbara then spotted a little ringed plover fly in and land to the left of the hide.
Lapwings, snipe, redshanks and oystercarchers were also visible from the hide. We then walked to ponds 3 and 4, seeing tadpoles in small pools of water. We then returned to the visitor centre and cafe and had a warm drink.
We then walked towards Joe's Pond. People had been putting seed on the top of fence posts and we saw several birds come to feed, including reed bunting, chaffinch and bullfinch.
While we at Joe's Pond we were able to watch a carrion crow mob a female sparrowhawk, and at one point they were above our heads.
As we returned to the visitor centre we saw a treecreeper.
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