5/12/2016 and 6/12/2016 Local News

Monday 5 December 2016
Ashdown Forest

• Spent an hour at dusk with Alastair looking for signs of any hen harriers going down to roost.   Although there had been a sighting during the daytime recently, no harriers came in to roost. It looks as if we will have a second successive failure after many years of continuous success.
• The usual suspects were there - winter thrushes, mippits, corvids and a sparrowhawk.

Tuesday 6 December 2016
Weir Wood Reservoir

Spent the morning burning debris and clearing paths on the north side of the reservoir and the afternoon helping Bob J put up a second sign in the water at the boundary of the nature reserve to remind the boating fraternity to keep out.

A rather distasteful experience presented itself to us in the north end car park at the start of the day.  We found 4 deer heads and a stomach smack in the middle of the parking area where the deer had obviously been butchered and the unwanted bits strewn around.  


On a more pleasant note we saw a good selection of birds.

• A couple of kingfishers flew up and down the stream on Willets.  
• On the feeder we had marsh tit, coal tit, great-spotted woodpecker and nuthatch of note.
• The usual buzzard sounds drew our attention at times.
• There were an unusual number of gadwall (25+) for Weir Wood.
• The start of the gull roost at the end of the day gave us 7 or 8 common gulls and a lesser black-backed gull among the black-headed gulls.