Week 11 - 08 - 15 March 2026

 A whole week around home with no away trips this week. It started very grey and drizzly on Sunday, picked up and became lush by midweek, and then following a wettish day on Thursday, a couple of variable days to finish the week. 

I managed 5 trips around the patch this week, as well as an incidental spot of a Sparrowhawk flying past my garden on Tuesday, much to the alarm of the birds in the vicinity. I've now become very attuned to the presence of Sparrowhawk, purely by recognising the change in the calls of the other birds!

Despite remaining on keen watch for spring migrants, and seeing plenty of other reports on Hirundinidae arriving on the south coast, nothing has appeared in the patch thus far. So the list has remained at 51 species seen within a mile of my house this year. 

Although I've briefly seen one overflying in February (so already on the patch list), a pair of Mallards have returned and taken up residency in the Ecopark this last week. It's one of those weird conundrums for me why Mallards seem to leave Cranbrook in the Winter, but be fairly abundant here between Spring and Autumn. It will be interesting to see one the recently expanded Surface Water Attenuation Basin Number 5 changes this, as it will become by far in a way Cranbrook's deepest water, and largest expanse, perhaps making it more resistant to freezing over compared to the other fairly shallow attenuation basins.

Flooding from the Crannabrook Stream just to the north helped populate the previous lake with plenty of minnows, meaning a Kingfisher regularly used the lake for feeding, and I'm hoping 3 m depth might be enough to tempt a Tufted Duck or a Little Grebe into the area in time.

In recent months the area of this basin has been expanded, by engineering works, and I suspect the depth reaches around 3 m deep (from seeing it being excavated before being filled).

On Wednesday 11th, I had my longest walk of the week in the Rockbeare part of the patch, taking in Percy Wakely Wood along the way. In 2 hours and nearly 4.5 miles I picked up 32 species, with the highlight being a couple of minutes watching a Treecreeper at close range in the wooded margin at the north of Rockbeare Manor.

On the Thursday 12th I saw one of the larger Starling Flocks of the winter, with around 70 birds flying in close formation, and managed to come across a Pied Wagtail with zero tail feathers. It's always nice to be able to find a characteristic to pick a single bird out, this one was feeding happily in the exposed mud as the water levels drop post winter in the Ecopark, but once it attempted to fly, it was obvious the flight was very unusual and unstable, so I'm not sure how long I give this bird unless it's tail feathers grow back soon.

The final walk was on the evening of Friday 13th, this is an unusual time of day for me to walk, as I often either get out around dawn, or in my work lunch break in the middle of the day. I was struck by two things, the unusually high number of Great Spotted Woodpeckers (6 including a pair together), but this being the first walk in months I'd not come across any Redwing, could both of these be linked to the unusual time of day (for me)? 

The eBird weekly bar chart shows that the 3rd week of March tends to be the week where the Redwing reports begin to tail off as the birds head back north (mostly to Scandinavia for Devon's population)

Hopefully a pleasant week of weather is coming up, so despite a midweek work trip to the Midlands, I should get another 5 good walks around the patch this coming week too.