Robin Hood Country

Me and Andy joined the York Bird Club field outing to Clumber Park on Sunday, we decided to head straight down to Rufford CP first thing to try and connect with Lesser Spotted Woodpecker hoping the early start would be an advantage to us, alas it was not to be, several pairs of Great Spotted were very vocal chasing each other around etc but there was no sign of any Lessers, we spent most of the morning staking out the area and Andy managed to see one when he followed a path into the wood but by the time the rest of us got to him it had moved on. We eventually conceded defeat and moved on to Budby Common, a couple of Wood Lark in full song lifted the spirits they also showed very well, Stonechat and Green Woodpecker present as well, the latter again evading the camera, then we had lunch at the Raptor viewpoint at Welbeck, it was a good Raptor day and we lost count of how many Buzzards there were, also two or three Goshawks up displaying. Chatting with a local birder here and telling him of our quest for Lesser Pecker he recommended the Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre and the path up to the Major Oak, we thought we'd give it a go, well it was a superb bit of ancient woodland and we saw the Major Oak but it was probably the wrong time of day to be looking for Woodpeckers and as it was a nice day it was absolutely full of people, we left there late afternoon and finally got to Clumber Park ending the day with a stroll along the top end of the lake, a Cetti's Warbler sang from the reeds there but there were no early Sand Martins over the lake.

Great Spots showed well

as did the Wood Lark

a couple of the Buzzards at Welbeck

some really great old trees

the 1150 year old Major Oak

evening over the lake at Clumber

showing who's boss