Today I had the day off work, so was able to spend a lot of time at the park, and it did not disappoint!
I've popped by a few times since my previous post, but only in quick visits in between other arrangements, and there wasn't a lot to report.
First off, the day was absolutely glorious, and it was slightly less busy from a people perspective and therefore a dog perspective, which made the conditions ideal.
I arrived and, to my delight, there were some gulls on ND1! I'd read about the gulls on deck from David's post, and I think he was just as elated as me when he had finally had some on the deck. Photos below (as proof!). I did have an interesting duck-type sound from ND1, which just confused me. I wasn't able to place it, probably because I'd never heard the sound at Nonsuch before. It wasn't a fly over, and there's no body of water from where the sound was coming from. I was too slow with my sound recorder. It's also possible it could have been a dog.
After a great start, I made my way over to P1 where there was very little activity, and it looks like there has been significant pruning/tree felling since my last visit.
I then headed to TL4 as I'd recently had Redwing there. This was an incredibly productive spot today especially when the dog walkers had moved on. Lots of feeding was going on and I got many of my day ticks here. It was looking like a particularly good day for beating my day list. While looking at a Redwing which was deep in the bushes, I heard a bit of a commotion overhead but ignored it (happens plenty of times, and is usually just disturbance caused by humans and dogs). I just so happened to bring my binoculars down and saw a whopping great big, brown wingspan. It could only mean one thing - a Buzzard. At this point, I was really annoyed that I'd missed a Buzzard in flight possibly 2 metres in front of me. Makes you wonder what you miss while you're looking at everything else.
Of course, I followed this into the next field (Zone 4) and couldn't see it. After some scanning, I was able to locate a Common Buzzard perched in a tree, as close as you like. It then took off with lots of crows after it and flew into another part further away. Photo below.
After that excitement, I decided I'd try to make it to the other no dog zones to see if any more gulls were on deck. Unfortunately there weren't. I made my way back through the park, trying to get a few more ticks. On the way, I had a completely white bird fly over, which I assume must have been a Dove, as it wasn't an Egret species. I was back at TL4 again because there was just so much activity. I had a couple of Blackbirds with totally black beaks, and I also had a few passerines both overhead and flitting between the bushes that I just wasn't able to ID. I think one overhead may have been a Meadow Pipit, but I'm not familiar enough with their flight calls yet, so we'll save that for another day. Having now listened back to their call, I am convinced it was - but I'm not happy ticking it this way, just in case.
Other suspected ticks were Goldcrest and Long-Tailed Tit (which absolutely must have been on site), Mistle Thrush possibly heard, same with Green Woodpecker and Little Owl. I really wasn't able to tell because they just didn't call for long enough and I wasn't close enough to the source. I also had a wagtail species overhead, which, if Pied, would have been a patch tick.
I think with a few more birds of prey (which I am sure were on site), I would have comfortably improved my daily list, but I was very happy with today's haul.
Ending the day on 22 species, and my overall list for the park is now at 38 species.
The extremely rare, Unhappy Gull in the bottom left.
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