YEOVIL JUNCTION TO HAM WALL STARLING ROOST
WEATHER: dull and overcast, light rain later
After saying goodbye to Group 1 at Yeovil Junction I went home for lunch and 40 minutes later I was back at Yeovil Junction to meet Group 2 to start a repeat of the Level’s Tour I had just finished with Group 1.
A Raven flew over, cronking, as the group stepped from their train, which was on time at 1:40pm. We drove straight to Ham Wall, noting Pheasant, Jackdaw, Rook, Crow, Collared Dove and Wood Pigeon along the way.
Our walk to VP 2 was punctuated with stops to look at many species, we were stopped by Robins and Great Tits that 'begged' to be fed and luckily, we had some seeds with us. Over the next hour we saw all seven of the ‘common’ species of ducks: Mallard, Gadwall, Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler, Tufted Duck and Common Pochard. Great White Egrets we dotted about in the reedbeds, we also saw Cormorants, Little Egret, Lapwing, Grey Heron, Moorhen, Coot and a couple of the group saw a Water Rail.
I bumped into Kevin Jones at Ham Wall and he sent me some pictures that I could use for my blog, this is his shot of a group of Common Snipe
At VP 2 we stood to watch the Starling Roost and hopefully a murmuration, as the light faded it started to rain, persistently but fairly light, however, we still got a soaking. We saw large numbers of starlings, thousands of them, they flew right over TO the back of the marsh and disappeared, a few flocks formed some nice shapes but it was all very distant.
The Great White Egret can be seen in ever-increasing numbers on the Somerset Levels, 30-40 pairs bred last year
Marsh Harriers gathered in fairly good numbers, we counted seven or eight of them at any one time but there was probably 20+ altogether. As we made our way back to the car park it stopped raining, we looked for night species like Owls and Woodcock but to no avail. Back at VP 1 we noted that some starlings had dropped into the reedbeds in the area, they were very moisy and a lot of them got up and flew over us to another section of the reeds.
Another Kevin Jones picture, Marsh Harrier
The car park was virtually empty by the time we got back there, it was dark and cold and we were damp. Our arrival at the Hotel was dead on 5pm, we checked in and met again just before dinner to run through the checklist, which didn't take very long!