Monday 9 May 2016

Linacre WeBS and a New Species

I was down at Linacre on Saturday to carry out a guided walk as part of the Chesterfield Walking Festival. 19 people took part in the walk, and we saw 33 species of bird in just over 3 hours. Whilst there I also logged the number of water birds for this month's WeBS walk. Results were: Mallard (26, including 2 broods of duckling, 12 and 4), Coot (6 adults), Moorhen (6; 4 adults and 2 chicks), Grey Wagtail (1 on the middle reservoir), Mandarin Duck (7 males), Great-crested Grebe (5 birds; 2 pairs, including 1 pair on a nest on the top reservoir, 1 pair on the middle reservoir and 1 bird on the bottom reservoir), Little Grebe (1 breeding plumaged bird on the bottom reservoir), Tufted Duck (12 adults) and the Shag (now into its 7th month!!).

Mallard and 12 ducklings

One of the first species we saw at the start of the walk was this Mistle Thrush. As you can see, it was collecting food by the bottom car park, and then flying to an unseen nest in the woods. A great record.

Mistle Thrush with food

The final record, and unfortunately not one that I made, was a report of 2 Redstarts at Linacre on Saturday. The report was on the Derbyshire Ornithological Society's website, but no further details were given. It would be great to catch up with this species at Linacre!

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