Thursday 6 March 2008

A dull, but less windy afternoon, and a walk to the wet woods and lake area was, as I expected pretty quiet. Just a few MALLARD and MOORHEN on the lake. I suspect there are a few Mallards on nests in the woods, as there are single males paddling around, on the alert for danger. I then cut through the tree nursery, much work is going on here removing trees, but its looking pretty slow. Over to Migrant alley, and just a few (20) FIELDFARE were feeding with 30 or so REDWING. This morning at 7.00am there were over 100 in a mixed flock on the manured field. 3 HERRING GULL flew S/E and a HERON flew over to the lake. Little else was noted.

In the garden there was a noticeable increase in CHAFFINCH with a peak of 14 counted. I didn't do too much window watching, as I wanted to go and check my ponds. I did a bit of light clearance, taking out dead leaves and twigs. One thing I noticed was nearly all my pond snails have gone, they used to be everywhere - on every surface, do the Newts eat the eggs of the pond snails I wonder? I certainly have no frogs because of the numbers of newts. Any pond experts out there?

2 comments:

Simon said...

All British newts eat snails as part of their diets.

Warren Baker said...

Thanks for that Simon.
My ponds are stuffed full of Newts! Great Crested and Common. I would of thought that the habitat would have found some sort of equilibrium. ?