Today is almost a complete contrast from the weekend. The visit between 9.05am and 11am started reasonably nice, with a light grey, overcast sky, but, compared to my rather soggy appearance at the end of my walk, it didn’t finish as it had begun. However, ‘they’ do say, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes”. This is definitely the right way to put it.
A total of 9 Blackcaps, 5 Chiff Chaffs, 10 Reed Warblers, and 9 Whitethroats were singing throughout my visit. The ‘scrub’ area is noticeably, and I suppose unsurprisingly, starting to get rather quiet with the sound of Whitethroats. This is undoubtedly due to breeding. There were large numbers of both male and female birds, dashing amongst the bushes and the nettles with either dry grass or juicy grubs.
A scan of the Lake produced 5 Mute Swans, and 5 Great Crested Grebes with 2 young, together with the usual Canada Geese, Mallard, Coots and Moorhens. There were several Black Headed Gulls and a few Common Gulls flying above the water, a Lesser Black-backed Gull sat on one of the buoys, 2 Cormorants sat on the island next to the Weir, and another sat on the Boating Ramp.
A Pheasant called from the Meadow, and another from the wood north of the Meadow, a Great Spotted Woodpecker called from one of the Meadow Oaks, a pair of Bullfinch were in a Sycamore along Laurel Walk, 2 Linnet flew east over the Meadow, and a scan over the Park produced 6 Swifts, 5 House Martins, 2 Herring Gulls and 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull flying north, a Swallow flying east, a flock of 12 racing Pigeons flying west, and several groups of corvids.
Hi, my name is Simon. My local patch is Mote Park, one of Kent’s largest parks and right on the edge of Maidstone, the county town of Kent. It is a former country estate, and records of the Park date back since before the 14th century. The park has a variety of habitats and this blog will note all the wildlife that I encounter in them.
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