Snowdrops and Raindrops
Carsington and Hopton Hall
9th February 2019
Despite my best efforts to undermine the carefully laid plans of Helen J we managed to assemble at the Sheepwash car park at Carsington at 9.30am.
We were missing Pam who chose a days supply work over a rainy day with her chums! Julia was having fun in France and Bob and Betty were not allowed to join us today.
The brave and hardy few searching for the elusive goldcrest
The weather was definitely not on our side and we soon took refuge in the bird hide with our flasks
Despite the grim outlook there were quite a few birds to be spotted although only the very hardy were prepared to open the windows to get a clear view. The pretty little reed buntings were a delight and have to be bird of the day - closely followed by the flock of lapwings apparently the collective name for them is a deceit of lapwings but surely they deserve better!
The second hide we visited was a bit like being in a ship - there were waves on the reservoir but thankfully the tide was out so no danger of seasickness.
Back out into the elements and the search for the goldcrest continued - a greenpost was about as close as we got to spotting one even though we were on our best bird spotting behaviour - well most of the time.
Feeling somewhat wet and bedraggled we made our way back to the car park and headed off to Hopton Hall to rendezvous with Charlotte. We were greeted by some very jolly chaps who were probably amazed to have so many customers on such a grim day. Lynn had to curb her large equipment envy and we dragged her away from the temptations of the very big shed and headed to the sanctuary of the café for coffee and warmth. Charlotte arrived to join us trying very hard to hide her relief at having missed the wet bird hunt.
Revived by coffee we set off...
Always on the look out for a good angle
The rain stopped - temporarily!
The stars of the show
Thankfully they were animal graves!
Well, well, well - how many retired teachers does it take to work out how deep a well is - the answer seemed to be something between not as deep as Alison is tall and 3000 feet - perhaps a more scientific approach is needed than dropping a stone and counting!
The rose garden will be lovely come the summer but we used our imaginations and admired the lovely wall.
We were very impressed with the moss eyelash extensions.....
........and the moss hair extensions
By this point we couldn't have been much better if we had thrown ourselves in the lake!
If only all the birds we spotted were as well behaved as this one.
Not the sort of gardening equipment that Lynn lusts after.
Finally back to the café for lunch and we were sent to sit in the 'bar' in case we were too rowdy for the handful of other brave souls having a civilised lunch - we did mange to terrify a very nice young man who came to chat with Charlotte though and we did finally manage to dry out. The soup was jolly good and look out for the two soups soup bowl idea on Dragons Den - the perfect solution to soup envy!
A bit of history
A jolly good warning sign
Having all warmed up the idea of heading off to look for more birds seemed like a good idea until we got outside and put our sooty waterproofs back on so we decided to call it a day and despite the awful weather it had been a very good one.
Bird List for today
Considering the weather, it was a good haul today of
33. New for this year are marked *. Bird of the day has to be the reed
bunting. Flock of the day is the
lapwing. Still at 98 for our running total since records began.
black headed gull
blackbird
blue tit
canada goose*
chaffinch
common gull*
coot
cormorant
crow
gadwall*
great crested grebe*
great tit
great black-backed gull*
great spotted woodpecker*
jackdaw
jay
lapwing*
lesser black backed gull*
little grebe*
long tailed tit*
mallard
mute swan*
pheasant*
pied wagtail*
redshank*
reed bunting*
robin
teal*
treecreeper*
tufted duck
wigeon*
willow tit*
wood pigeon
