March 6th 2010

No sign of Red-necked when Chris and I popped down to the pond this morning. We had to wait for the gates to open so watched 4 House Sparrow in the entrance hedgerow and a Long-tailed Tit in the country park otherwise it was the usual 2 Great-northern Diver showing well including one stretching its wings and circling reservoir a couple of times and the male Smew off draycote bank. Only other sightings of note was 3 Green Woodpecker, 5 female Goosander flying south over windsurfing area, 36 Goldeneye and we missed an Oystercatcher.
Napton Reservoir had 200 Common Gull, 4 Shoveler, 3 Wigeon, 4 Pochard, 3 Buzzard, 50 Fieldfare, 10 Redwing and at least 10 Raven in the area.

Well it seems official (according to staff) – Severn Trent have finally lost the plot and are closing the visitors centre in June and making many of the staff redundant. This will mean the end of my walks as there will be no one to co-ordinate them, no access to the record book, no access to the disabled electric wheel chairs for those with walking difficulties, no decent toilets, no changing facilities for those with babies and I bet me bottom dollar there will be no fishing for some time as they have not even put any planning permission in yet for the so called development of the site which was the reason fishermen were given for closing the fishery this year. Of course trying to get someone with an ounce of a brain at Severn Trent HQ to talk is very difficult but to put it bluntly they couldn’t run a whist drive – if you are affected by the above write to your MP and your local paper. If you don’t fight this then why should they keep the place open.

Richard