A disappointing walk out along the Bunk area today with very little noted.
10 House Martin, 6 Swallow and 8 Chiffchaff.
At the gravel pit I saw up to 200 Canada Geese and 32 Greylag Geese fly from the area, probably disturbed by heavy machinery.
A couple of years ago the gravel pit workers were co-operative and would feed us information and they set up a small viewing area outside of the boundary for birders to view one of the pits
You cannot now view the gravel pit area any more as the area they set up for us is now intentionally overgrown and has blocked our view.
On discussing this with the pit manager earlier this year he stated that due to a few birders gaining unauthorised access to the pit area they would effectively cease to co-operate with us.
I quite understand the health and safety aspect but this comes across as somewhat vindictive.
The gravel pit, although unwanted by the village has opened up a new habitat that we have not had in Cholsey before.
Little Ringed Plover and Sand Martin have since bred there with LRP not recorded breeding before and Sand Martin not since the 70’s.
A Rock Pipit was also found there, which was a first for Cholsey and several scarce wader and wildfowl species have also been seen/heard there.
So it’s a bit unfortunate that we now have deteriorated relations with the GP management.
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