Two years ago, which was the last time we held this walk due to Covid lockdown in 2021, storm Dennis had battered these shores the previous day and no-one attended. This year despite the storms in the previous few days, another on its way and some very damp and quite windy weather, seven  brave souls attended. They were rewarded with good sightings of a good number of species.

However overall bird numbers were quite low, in part probably because of the strong winds and in part because it has just not been cold enough to drive migrants this far south. Even the flooded meadow on Stockers Farm was very quiet with just Canada Geese and Woodpigeon in evidence.

 By the time we left the causeway by Stockers House for the canal path we had already seen Red Kite, Great Crested Grebe, Coot, Tufted Duck, Wigeon, Mallard, Cormorant, Egyptian Goose (on Bury Lake) Robin, Wren, Blue Tit and Blackbird. We soon added Siskin (quite a flock) Goldfinch, Long Tailed Tit, Great Tit and Dunnock. By the time we reached the binocular leaning post opposite the heronry (still out of action) we had added Magpie, Ring-necked Parakeet, Chaffinch, Grey Heron, Shoveler, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Black-headed Gull a solitary Common Gull (which are anything but common) Herring Gull and Mute Swan. The stars of the show were the Goldeneye pairing up . We also found a Gadwall and Pochard.

 We did not do the full circuit partly due to the deteriorating weather and partly as it was reported that there was a tree down making the path on the river side difficult to use. So we retraced our steps and added Great Spotted Woodpecker, Moorhen and Carrion Crow to the list before ending our walk and returning to the car park with 36 species under our belts.

There was just one more treat on the way out. - a widespread but uncommon, bright red fungus called an Elf Cup which appears in winter on dead and decaying twigs etc. This is a first, as far as I know, both for the reserve and certainly for one of our walks. There are two red varieties. (It comes in green too apparently.) These are the ruby and the scarlet which the book says can only be separated with the aid of a microscope. (Stock picture shown of the scarlet variety).

Whilst in Kingfisher Hide we took the opportunity to monitor the heron nests out on the island using our cameras. There are herons sitting on about 30 nests in range of the cameras so there must be as many again if not more altogether on the islands. On most of those we could see the birds are sitting tight so are likely to be incubating eggs, and some of them have been doing that for about 2 weeks already. We expect 3 to 5 eggs in each nest. Incubation takes about 28 days give or take 2 or 3 so we might get chicks any time from the end of Feb. Fledging takes a further 6 to 8 weeks. So watch this space.

Dick Beeden