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Lunt Meadows
7th September 2019 10:30 - 15:40
Warm Sunny day
Number in Party - 4
Making the most of the window of good weather the farmers were already at hard at work harvesting, when we arrived at Lunt Meadows on Saturday morning. We had scarcely gone a hundred yards into the reserve when we saw a northern wheatear alight from the grass onto one of the nearby posts lining the driveway to the car park, then a covey of grey partridge basking in the early morning sunshine that stayed with us for the best part of the day. Our first stop inside the reserve gave us four snipe probing the food-rich mud like sewing machines. Weaving our way around the reserve we disturbed countless numbers of butterflies on the paths where their cryptic colours blending seamlessly into its surroundings, amongst which were red admiral small tortoiseshell speckled wood and large white to name but a few. Walking the embankment we saw Pink-footed geese come into rest on the pools. We had our sandwiches by the old pump house where the butterflies continued to dance in and out of the reeds, parties of swallows and martins passing overhead. There was still large swathes of a colour throughout the reserve from golden yellow ragworts, sow thistles and bindweeds as we continued around the pathway. The earlier flowering umbelliferous plants were beginning to leave their skeletons high above the hedgerow vegetation but in a small corner of the reserve, the mugwort towered above all else. Hearing the mewing call of a buzzard we looked up to see three of them circling on the thermals above us. In the distance we could see a lone bird flying almost directly towards where we were standing, initially it looked like a Shelduck with it's pied colouring but as it drew closer it turned out to be a juvenile great crested grebe still with it's striped face pattern. Other standout birds included Ruff, a dozen common gull among the usual array of gulls, wagtails and large numbers of lapwing on the pools. As we finished a great day at the reserve bathed in sunshine pink feet could still be heard heading towards the pools.
7th September 2019 10:30 - 15:40
Warm Sunny day
Number in Party - 4
Making the most of the window of good weather the farmers were already at hard at work harvesting, when we arrived at Lunt Meadows on Saturday morning. We had scarcely gone a hundred yards into the reserve when we saw a northern wheatear alight from the grass onto one of the nearby posts lining the driveway to the car park, then a covey of grey partridge basking in the early morning sunshine that stayed with us for the best part of the day. Our first stop inside the reserve gave us four snipe probing the food-rich mud like sewing machines. Weaving our way around the reserve we disturbed countless numbers of butterflies on the paths where their cryptic colours blending seamlessly into its surroundings, amongst which were red admiral small tortoiseshell speckled wood and large white to name but a few. Walking the embankment we saw Pink-footed geese come into rest on the pools. We had our sandwiches by the old pump house where the butterflies continued to dance in and out of the reeds, parties of swallows and martins passing overhead. There was still large swathes of a colour throughout the reserve from golden yellow ragworts, sow thistles and bindweeds as we continued around the pathway. The earlier flowering umbelliferous plants were beginning to leave their skeletons high above the hedgerow vegetation but in a small corner of the reserve, the mugwort towered above all else. Hearing the mewing call of a buzzard we looked up to see three of them circling on the thermals above us. In the distance we could see a lone bird flying almost directly towards where we were standing, initially it looked like a Shelduck with it's pied colouring but as it drew closer it turned out to be a juvenile great crested grebe still with it's striped face pattern. Other standout birds included Ruff, a dozen common gull among the usual array of gulls, wagtails and large numbers of lapwing on the pools. As we finished a great day at the reserve bathed in sunshine pink feet could still be heard heading towards the pools.
| Bird list Pink Footed Goose 100+ Greylag Goose 50+ Canada Goose 300+ Mallard 100+ Shoveller 10+ Teal 100+ Grey Partridge 8 E Pheasant 5+ Cormorant 5+ Little Grebe 1 Great Crested Grebe 1 Grey Heron 2 Com Buzzard 3 Kestrel 2 Moorhen 10+ Water Rail 1 Coot 20+ Lapwing 400+ Ruff 5+ Curlew h Common Snipe 5+ Swallow 20+ Sand Martin h House Martin 10+ Swift 1 L Black Headed Gull 100+ Herring Gull 2 | Lesser Black Backed Gull 2 Common Gull 12+ Wood pigeon 20+ Collared Dove 2 Stock Dove 2 Carrion Crow 10+ Magpie 5+ Robin h Pied Wagtail 2 White Wagtail 1 Willow/Chiff Wren h Starling 30+ Wheatear 1m E Goldfinch 60+ Linnet 3+ Large White Speckled Wood Small Tortoiseshell Red Admiral Various Dragonflies? E=Entrance to Reserve L=Lunt Village |