Greylake, Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath

Greylake, Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath

13th January 2008

It was a very windy day, and only six of us met up at Greylake reserve car park. Roy, a volunteer at Greylake, showed us around the reserve. First, we looked out over the reserve from the platform by the car park. We saw distant flights of Lapwings, Mute Swans on the marsh as well as some Goldfinch and Greenfinch in nearby bushes.

Then we set off along the boardwalk to the hide. While we were in there we spotted a field full of Lapwing, some Mallard, a Little Egret and a small group of Wigeon. When we left the hide we continued further along the track, where we found a Wren, Snipe, Mute Swans, Teal and Canada Geese. A few other waders flew over that we were unsure of, though we did identify some Golden Plover, and Pat spotted a Fieldfare. There were also Herons, an abundance of Starlings, and a Hare which ran past at a great speed of knots. When we were nearly back at the car park, we were amazed to see two dozen or more Snipe in one marshy area.

After lunch at Ashcott Corner, we headed into Ham Wall reserve. However, the most bird activity seemed to be around a bird table in someone’s garden. We did see a Peregrine fly over. Apart from that, a Tufted Duck, Cormorants, Crows and a Buzzard were about all there were.

Then Richard suggested we head over to Shapwick Heath, On the walk down the track we had views of Coot, Gadwall, Shoveler, Teal, Cormorant and Mute Swans. The first hide we stopped at was Noah’s Hide, from which we had good views of a pair of Goldeneye (along with the usual Cormorants, Swans and some more Tufted Duck). Then we made our way over to Meare Heath Hide. Pat was the first to spot what we first thought was a Marsh Harrier. However, after some thought and research, we confirmed that it was a Hen Harrier - what a reward for the end of the day. Finally, a Kestrel was displaying just before we got back to the car park. We headed home before the rain set in.

Thanks to everyone, including Roy at Greylake, for making a nice day out to an area that I always like to visit.

Number of species seen: 37

Steve Mole

Birds seen, in BOU order or alphabetic order

BOU order

Mute Swan

Greylag Goose

Wigeon

Gadwall

Teal

Mallard

Shoveler

Tufted Duck

Goldeneye

Cormorant

Little Egret

Grey Heron

Hen Harrier

Buzzard

Kestrel

Peregrine

Moorhen

Coot

Golden Plover

Lapwing

Snipe

Black-headed Gull

Wood Pigeon

Wren

Dunnock

Robin

Blackbird

Fieldfare

Redwing

Long-tailed Tit

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Carrion Crow

Starling

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Goldfinch

Alphabetic order