Weather: bright, sunny & warm. 2 to 6pm.
A first visit to a site I'd long hoped to visit, in search of woodland specialities. An easy walk to the hides from the small visitors' centre but with much longer walks through the woods if desired. The oaks were magnificent & at a couple of hundred years old probably quite young with more magnificence to come!
Car-park:
Crow - several around including a number of recently fledged juveniles.
Song Thrush - several singing repetitively around the reserve then I later spotted two seemingly courting.
Woodpigeon, Blackbird.
Woods:
Redstart - crossing the meadow as I approached the trees I heard one singing but though I waited for a good period of time I couldn't connect with the bird through the thick foliage though a couple of shadows flitting amongst the trees may have been what I was searching for. I later heard another right outside the hide but again did not sight it.
Robin, Treecreeper, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Wren, Coal Tit - seen and/or heard amongst the trees as I strove to see the redstart.
Nuthatch - a squeaking hubbub alerted me to a group of fledgings moving overhead with their parents in attendence; there were maybe 10 or so & I also saw another adult visit a nesthole several times from a tree next to the hide.
Lower Hide:
Spotted Flycatcher - flying back & forth from a dead tree & bushes nearby in typical fashion; apparently it was nesting in the dead tree.
Grey Heron - a lone juvenile skulking in the woodland pond visible from the hide, slightly out of place. At one point it flew up to perch high on the spot-fly's dead tree.
Blue Tit, Great Tit - several groups of fledglings moving around the area.
Mallard - a pair on the pond.
Pied Flycatcher - after being advised that I was due a wait before seeing them I was not disappointed however after waiting for the best part of an hour a stunning male appeared on a low branch at the far end of the pond clearing. It flitted around in textbook fashion, staying low & often disappearing onto the ground amongst the bracken. The male was joined by a female & they both soon spread their foraging across the whole of the pond clearing amongst the oak trees & bracken before eventually melting away into the woods. They did reappear again not too long after but for a shorter length of time, before I finally departed (from the somewhat uncomfortably designed hide).
Woods:
Siskin - two flew over perching on branches as they went, one a juvenile calling persistently.
Towards Campbell Hide:
Goldcrest, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff.
22 species, 2 new species.
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