Sunday saw me down at Holywell at half 9, it was cold with quite a heavy cloud cover, the pond was 80% frozen.
From the car 60+ Greylag could been seen in the West fields, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Starling and House Sparrow were feeding on the green. On the pond, 2 Mute Swan, 5 Teal, 23 Mallard, 21 Pochard, 6 Tufted, 2 Drake Goldeneye, 2 Grey Heron, 6 Moorhen, 8 Coot, 100+ Black Headed Gull, 20 Common Gull, 50+ Herring Gull and a lone Great Black Backed Gull. Usual suspects in feeding station.
The geese flock was next on my cards, to have a closer look incase of something different lurking amongst them. A quick look in the public hide produced nothing more. I approached the geese slowly and cautiously as they were quite close to the path, the 60+ seen from the car had turned into a 120+ strong flock, although all Greylag. Down the dene there was a pair of Stock Dove.
Monday, arrived at the hide at 17:00, with heavy snow clouds and a setting sun, it was colder -3. A 100+ skein of geese flew overhead as I walked down, joining another 100+ in the East field, again all Greylag. On the pond 2 Mute Swan, 250+ Gulls steadily increasing as I sat, 17 Wigeon, 1 Drake Goldeneye, 21 Pochard, 4 Tufted, 1 Cormorant, 20 Mallard and a lone Grey Heron.
The amount of time the pond has been frozen this winter says a great deal about how hard a winter it has been, and how hard it has been on wildlife. Looks like frozen ponds are to be with us a while longer! It would be interesting to know how many days the majority of the surface of Holywell Pond has been frozed during the winter. Cheers Brian.
ReplyDeleteWould be really interesting, and a comparison with last years wintering wildfowl. I bet there would be a drastically different figure compared to previous years, apart from days when the ice thawed slightly to expose freshwater, at them times an increase in wildfowl may be seen, possibly.
ReplyDelete'skein of geese' - you learn something new...
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