Winter's here ! Maple Lodge today

Today was brilliantly cold with clear blue skies. Winter has finally arrived.

 

My day started at Heathrow Bus Station to meet Nathalie, the Fulham and Barnes Peregrines Godmother. The bus station has a thriving community of House Sparrows. There are signs up saying 'Don't feed the birds' but that doesn't stop the bus drivers throwing titbits out for them, nor stop Nathalie emptying her pockets of crumbs.....

 

 

It really was bitterly cold today. Once we got to Maple Lodge NR the full scale of how cold it was really hit home. The lakes were frozen over and there were barely any water birds to be seen....

 

Frozen lake from the Shell Hide

 

Nathalie spotted this lovely meteorological phenomenon below, a partial rainbow.....

shame I didn't clean my camera lens first though....

 

 

We saw Sparrowhawks several times today, usually very high up in the bare trees or flying around, hence no great photo opportunities.....

 

 

I had the same luck with Treecreepers. We had two great sightings today, one of a group of three Treecreepers chasing each other around, and a bit later we had four Treecreepers chasing each around. So another batch of bad photos from me.....they just weren't being obliging enough...

 

 

We had more luck with the Great Spotted Woodpeckers. From the comfort of the Clubhouse Hide, with a welcoming warm mug of coffee, we watched two males starting the annual ritual of 'this is my patch' where one comes down to feed and is swiftly chased off by the other....

 

 

A female landed briefly....

 

and happily shared her food with a Blue Tit.....

 

before one of the males swooped in and spooked her off....

 

The iced over lakes meant most of the ducks had either retreated further in to cover where the water wasn't frozen, but where we could only see them with good eyesight and binoculars, or like the Great Crested Grebes below, had retreated to the lake the other side of the farm fields which is too big to get completely iced over.

The Great Crested Grebes gave us a tantalisingly brief view of courtship. Of course the sun was against us, as was the distance....

 

 

From the same Lynsters Hide we saw 4-5 Fieldfare, Mistle Thrush, Egyptian Geese, Canada Geese, a pair of Mute Swans, several Tufted Ducks, a Wigeon, some Teal, a couple of Cormorants, good numbers of Chaffinch, Greylag Geese, Mallards, Coots, Moorhens and a pair of Stock Dove. For today that was obviously the best hide to be in.

 

At the Rotunda Hide the high water levels have almost flooded the meadow, and as to be expected, it was frozen over.

A couple of Wrens were inspecting the ice.....

 

 

A Coot was walking across it...

 

 

and a Blue Tit was systematically looking for seeds in the reed mace heads....

 

If I had observed the behaviour above a month or so later, I'd have guessed it was collecting the fluffy seeds for nesting material, but not once did it fly off with any. It was definitely eating it instead.

 

Along the woodland walk we amused ourselves by following a Muntjac Deers tracks. The ground was quite soft, unlike the more exposed muddy paths on site, and the tracks looked quite fresh... 

 

Despite the month and the cold snap, there were still fungi to be found....

 

 

I will get ids for them this evening and list them later.

 

There was no sign of the Little Egret nor the Kingfisher today, not surprising really considering they'd give themselves a headache trying to get through the ice to the fish below.

 

Other bird sights and sounds from today, but not photographed, included a good strong flock of around 40-50 Siskins feeding on the alders across the water from the Rotunda, at least 10 Redwings feeding on the ivy berries seen from the Clubhouse window looking towards the Waterworks, several mixed flocks of Long-tailed, Blue and Great Tits making their way around the site, a Coal Tit was heard several times but not seen, at least five Goldfinch from the Clubhouse Hide, a Green Woodpecker was heard 'yaffling', two Grey Herons, a Common Buzzard was putting up the Ravens, Crows and Pigeons on the farm land, a Red Kite went over, at least two Great Spotted Woodpeckers were 'drumming' and a few Pied Wagtails were also heard but not seen.

 

A freezing cold visit with not much on the lakes but as always for me, it's the wonderful sense of knowing you're on a private nature reserve that really caters and cares for the wildlife that makes any visit worth while, and that makes it quite magical.