ACRES DOWN – TRANSFER TO SOUTHAMPTON CENTRAL
WEATHER: a hot sunny day at last, a nice breeze.
Before breakfast a few of us met up for a walk from the hotel. Across the road a small, wooded area, looked interesting and last night before the ‘Nightjar outing’ we heard a woodpecker drumming from there.
We found a Goldcrest’s nest, the adult birds were still building the nest and were returning with nesting material quite often.
Goldcrest with nesting material - Goldcrests always seem to have a sad expression in their eyes!!
Noisy Rooks and jackdaws called above us and the ubiquitous Song Thrush bellowed its repetitive 4-note song. On the other side of the wood a large grassy area extends to the Beaulieu Road and on it we found Chaffinches, Blackbirds, Jackdaws and a great Spotted Woodpecker. The woodpecker flew up and directly towards us, we watched fly to a nearby tree where we located a freshly excavated hole.
three shots of Great Spotted Woodpecker
For about 30 minutes we watched by adult woodpeckers feeding their young, we were a little disappointed because we thought that the woodpecker we heard last night may have been a Lesser Spotted variety.
After breakfast we loaded up the bus with our luggage, we checked out and said goodbye to the wonderful staff and set off for Acres Down car park. Our walk today was down into the woodland rather than up onto the heath.
Bird song rang out but sightings were few and far between until we bumped into a male Common Redstart which was singing from the top of an oak tree. In an open area we found a pair of Grey Wagtails, we also watched Goldcrests, Coal Tit and Blue Tit.
A little further on we met some birders who told us that they had heard a Wood Warbler further down the track, we quickly moved on to the area. Sure enough a Wood Warbler was singing and with a lot of patience most of us saw the bird as it moved from song-post to song-post. Well, that was a nice addition to our list.
it was very difficult to digi-scope a Wood Warbler which was deep in the forest
For the last part of the walk we returned to the car park and walk up the steep incline to a ridge where we had extended views over a valley and distant woodland, we hoped to see raptors from there. We watched a couple of Blackcaps, another Goldcrest and a Jay flew over (twice). A pair of Bullfinches was nice to see but fleetingly and both Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff could be heard.
this colourful Rose Chafer landed on Jenny's arm
The only raptor that we saw was a Common Buzzard and soon we ran out of time, so we clambered down the hill and boarded the bus.
the Stock Dove is a very common woodland bird in the New Forest
For n we parked in the centre of Lyndhurst and ate in the café in the car park, we then drove to Southampton Central where I dropped off the group for there return to London. The two trip were officially over all I had to do was return to Yeovil in bank Holiday Traffic!!
Overall we saw all of the New Forest species except for Honey Buzzard and some of the birds were seen only briefly. It was surprisingly quiet on the butterfly and dragonfly scene, with very few sightings. The groups went home happy with a list of over 100 species, Group 1 pipped Group 2 by two species.