Stags Lodge & Brockholes Nature Reserve LWT - 9th May 2010

Stags Lodge proved to be quite fruitful in the morning sunshine as far as warblers were concerned with 4 Chiffchaff, 2 Willow Warbler, 4 Blackcap and 2 Whitethroat on show across the park. Both the Blackcap and the Whitethroat gave us the run around when we were trying to get some photos but we did manage one or two of the former.

ABOVE & BELOW MALE BLACKCAP AT STAGS LODGE

Warblers were also on the agenda on our afternoon trip down to Brockholes Nature reserve. We spent almost an hour by the reed bed to the right of the feeders near the entrance gate listening to several calling but not showing themselves and after meeting up with Bill Gregory later in afternoon he reliably informed us they were Reed Warblers. He also informed us of an area Garden Warbler had been seen and we duly set off seeing it as soon as we got to the area. In the same area we also saw 2 Blackcap and 1 Whitethroat. On the east end of No1 Pool we heard again several Warblers calling and aren’t sure if they were Sedge or Reed but we did manage to photograph a Sedge Warbler calling from a small bush amongst the reeds. Also in the are was a pair of Whitethroat and Reece found a Newt (not sure of the species) and c30 tadpoles at the edge of the pool. Expect more warblers in the coming months as after chatting with Mike Foley earlier this month we are going to try and photograph the more common warblers this summer. We have 5 so far, Willow, Sedge, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Chiffchaff. It will be back to Brockholes to try and pick up the Garden and Reed again the others we’ll just have to have a think about.

TOP SEDGE WARBLER, BELOW WHITETHROAT, BOTTOM UNKNOWN NEWT SPECIES AT BROCKHOLES