The Forest of Dean on a Glorious Day.
28th February 2019
We decided to visit the Forest of Dean yesterday to take advantage of this sublime spell of winter weather. Our first stop was Parkend Church to see if we could locate any Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers - and along one of the forestry tracks we could hear one drumming softly but we couldn’t see where - but that’s about par for the course with these enigmatic little birds. Also in this location Crossbills have been coming down to drink from some road – side puddles, but these puddles are now virtually dry. There was a man sat in his car there with a Camo jacket on and a lens, obviously waiting for these birds to hopefully come down to drink. Amusingly, in the very warm sunshine he was fast asleep and when we returned about an hour later he was still asleep. I hope no birds came down because he would have missed them. I say amusingly, because it has happened to me previously, especially when things are quiet. I was trying to photograph a Cuckoo one morning some years ago in similar weather and I had fallen asleep in my hide and when I woke up there was the Cuckoo on a branch of a tree a few feet away just staring at me.
In Parkend, in the woodland opposite the cricket pitch in Crown Lane Hawfinches can sometimes be seen, but this is a very noisy area and there is always disturbance from dog walkers, traffic and worst of all so-called birders and photographers who get out of their cars to try and see the Hawfinches. This behaviour inevitably spooks these very flighty birds and results in nobody seeing them. We parked under the trees and saw one male bird that was still in winter plumage but the light under there was quite frankly abysmal, and there was no real chance of a decent photograph because of these dire lighting conditions. This situation was compounded when a ‘photographer’ walked right up to this woodland and produced a picnic chair and sat down with his tripod and camera obviously with the intention of photographing Hawfinches – LOL – No Chance!! We decided to leave, reminded why we hate this location.
We then visited the New Fancy View lookout just up the road from Parkend, to see if there were any Goshawks displaying and there were only two very distant birds seen. New Fancy view is not what it was, even a few years ago. We can remember numbers of Crossbills landing in the tops of the pine trees and Hawfinches flying across the tree tops regularly. Yesterday there was hardly any bird song there and virtually no raptors in the air anywhere – in weather like this you would think birds would be out displaying and singing but I suppose it’s just a reflection of the way things are these days.
However, there was one saving grace in terms of wildlife – on the walk back down from New Fancy View, on the grassy banking by the side of the track, we came across some Adders – three in total – all males. I managed some shots as they warmed – up in the leaf litter. Seeing these lovely snakes always brings to mind just how small they are, and how they are easily missed most of the time as people walk by.
These snakes are recognizeable by their individual head patterns by people who monitor them.
Despite the lack of birds it was still an absolute pleasure to be out walking around on such a glorious day.
In Parkend, in the woodland opposite the cricket pitch in Crown Lane Hawfinches can sometimes be seen, but this is a very noisy area and there is always disturbance from dog walkers, traffic and worst of all so-called birders and photographers who get out of their cars to try and see the Hawfinches. This behaviour inevitably spooks these very flighty birds and results in nobody seeing them. We parked under the trees and saw one male bird that was still in winter plumage but the light under there was quite frankly abysmal, and there was no real chance of a decent photograph because of these dire lighting conditions. This situation was compounded when a ‘photographer’ walked right up to this woodland and produced a picnic chair and sat down with his tripod and camera obviously with the intention of photographing Hawfinches – LOL – No Chance!! We decided to leave, reminded why we hate this location.
We then visited the New Fancy View lookout just up the road from Parkend, to see if there were any Goshawks displaying and there were only two very distant birds seen. New Fancy view is not what it was, even a few years ago. We can remember numbers of Crossbills landing in the tops of the pine trees and Hawfinches flying across the tree tops regularly. Yesterday there was hardly any bird song there and virtually no raptors in the air anywhere – in weather like this you would think birds would be out displaying and singing but I suppose it’s just a reflection of the way things are these days.
However, there was one saving grace in terms of wildlife – on the walk back down from New Fancy View, on the grassy banking by the side of the track, we came across some Adders – three in total – all males. I managed some shots as they warmed – up in the leaf litter. Seeing these lovely snakes always brings to mind just how small they are, and how they are easily missed most of the time as people walk by.
These snakes are recognizeable by their individual head patterns by people who monitor them.
Despite the lack of birds it was still an absolute pleasure to be out walking around on such a glorious day.