16th February
Brief Encounter Theme Sergei Rachmaninoff
Up and at them early on a cool morning, I cycled north. Once at Blashford Lakes Hampshire Wildlife Trust Reserve, I soon found some Bramblings [137], about fifty of them, mostly remarkably close to an octagonal hide, called the Woodland Hide.
Also on view were remarkably
close Siskins and Lesser Redpolls massed on the many feeders here. Now with so
many finches in such close proximity to each other and being so close to the
reflective glass windows of the hide, any perceived threat caused mass panic
and occasionally there was a thump as a bird in its panic crashed into a
window. Whilst I watched this did cause the sad death of one of the Siskins.
Later, whilst talking to a couple about what I was doing and why, I was approached by a young man with his girlfriend. “Are you Gary Prescott?” Obviously, the answer was yes.
This turned out to have been
asked by none other than Simon Woolley, an amazing cycling birder whom I have
mentioned already and whose exploits back in 2005 had been so inspirational to
my Green Birding dreams.
Now meeting Simon and thinking of the dynamic duo, Chris Mills and Simon, I looked up where they had both been, bird number-wise, on the same date back in 2005. Simon had been on 105 birds on this date. Meanwhile Chris had surged ahead on 139 having seen Hen Harriers, Whooper Swans, Waxwings and a Glaucous Gull. It seemed unbelievable to me that I was only two birds behind Chris' total. “Plenty of time to get ahead,” I thought casually. As for Simon, Hampshire was always going to be a tough county in which to compete against Norfolk. In the hide we chatted about Green birding. It was fabulous to meet him and say thank you to him in person.
Away from this fine area of
prime birding habitat near to the excellent visitor's centre, other gravel pits
offered up new birds for the year. These included Green Sandpipers [138]
with one on Ivy Lake and another seen on the Ibsley meadows with twelve
Bewick Swans. On one of the gravel pits a Common Scoter [139] was quite
a surprise bird being a sea duck.
A Great White Egret [140]
had been seen in various parts of the valley and I found it half a mile or so
north of Harbridge. I knew of a back road to Fordingbridge and of some flooded
meadows along it. I went down a grassy track accessing the area and there it
was with two Little Egrets and a Grey Heron. Soon the GWE took off in the
direction of Blashford Lakes. I phoned it in to Birdguides.
20.38 miles
410 feet elevation up 273 feet down
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