As I climbed over the stile and walked along the pathway leading through the woodland surrounding the west side of the quarry I was quite amazed at the numbers of Speckled Wood Butterflies there were many dozens of them along with several Comma's , now, although it wasn't freezing cold it most certainly was in no way warm so the Common Darter Dragonfly that put in an appearance also rather surprised me.
Made my way down through the trees to the lakeside unfortunately this super spot is to some considerable extent marred by the many dogs that use it as a toilet and their thoughtless owners who take great delight in encouraging rover into the water and allowing their curs the freedom of the quarry, one wonders just how good this site would be without the canine interference especially for ground dwelling animals and low nesting birds.
A Black-Tailed Godwit flew round and round hoping to find food and a safe haven, alas, too many dog walkers with their crapping machines that were running wild and eventually the B-T Godwit gave up the ghost and disappeared. On the water were Lesser Black - Backed Gulls, about eight Pochard, some two hundred Canada Geese, twenty Mallard, forty Tufted Duck , six Great C Grebe and a Cormorant. At this juncture the now dark grey and threatening heavens opened up drenching me and catching me out yet again.
The surrounding fields to the east contained some one hundred Lapwing many Gulls and a lot of Corvids. As I made my wet and bedraggled way back to the motor I had nice views of a pair of magnificent Buzzards as they circled the sky doing there best to assist the local farmers in their fight against the huge numbers of Rabbits.
A planning application to divert some of the public right of ways has been posted in several places at the quarry and my first thought was to query this but on closer inspection it looks as if it might benefit the wildlife by keeping the dog menace away from some of the site.
camboy.
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