TQ71 Z (Powdermill Reservoir SW)
12th March 2008, Wednesday
When I visited this site last month, I was impressed with the frequency of Robins along the lanes and assumed that they were already on territory, but I seem to have been mistaken, for this morning there were few.
It could have been something to do with the wind, roaring through the treetops and sending storms of leaves tumbling through the sky, accompanied on occasions by items of domestic refuse, liberated from toppled bins. The wind was throwing down random handfuls of raindrops, crimson poplar catkins and the odd rotten branch which would burst into sawdust as it hit the tarmac.
This may also have explained The Silence of the Nuthatches, so loud before but now perhaps clinging on by their toenails. Chaffinches, Great and Blue Tits were however much in evidence while a flock of c50 Jackdaws had wisely crowded into the shelter of a cattle shed.
I was sure I could hear a Firecrest singing from one mature garden, but found it hard to concentrate for the ominous creaking of elderly trees and the hurtling 4×4s of schoolrun mothers.
Wildfowl were scarce too, perhaps cowering beneath the overhanging willows while the waters of the reservoir rocked back and forth, slopping noisy waves up into the Wood Anemones. A few Mallard, Teal and Mandarins crashed up out of the jungle; 3 G C Grebes, 6 Cormorants and 18 Tufted Ducks rode the swell. Moorhens were all but invisible and Little Grebes completely, though they made their presence known by wild trills from four locations.
The big former set-aside fields at Gt Sanders are now being brought back into cultivation, with sheep grazing to the east while the western end has been ploughed, exposing interesting soil marks which must reveal the sites of former ore-pits. Skylarks are already singing there and a mixed flock of c200 Fieldfares, Redwings and Starlings was feeding on the grassland which is reserved for the Step Back In Time event in August. Old stiles have been replaced with steel kissing-gates to improve access for walkers and their dogs.
