Ipswich - the Belstead Brook area - 5/2/2019

 GREY WAGTAIL along the river at Ashground Plantation

 

Being an urban area Ipswich doesn't really come across as having good birding sites. However in the southern belly of the town is an area of great habitats that would be important if they were found outside in the country. Being in an urban area these places are constantly under threat from development, and there have been some high profile cases of their destruction nearly happening. Collectively they are known as the Belstead Brook reserves, due to the little river that joins them all up.
The most important of these habitats is Spring Wood an ancient forest famous for its bluebell displays. However today although noisy through birds starting to make territories, the woods didn't hold anything unusual, although a singing SONG THRUSH, was my first proper one of the Spring. The path leads through Spring Wood and comes out at Bobbit's Lane Meadow and completes a circle back to the car park. The meadows are another reserve and they have a gradation from dry grassland, gradually getting wetter, to turn to reeds and ultimately a pond. On the pond was an Ipswich mega in the form of two SHOVELLERS, a male and female. However the male wasn't in breeding plumage finery and was barely more decorated than the female. They were with four GADWALL, themselves rare in Ipswich, I have only seen them here in the town.

The strange male SHOVELLER

 



Having returned to the car park I turned my attention to Ashground Plantation, an overgrown area of alder carr. Usually at this time of year the forest floor is under several inches of water, but with this dry winter it was parched. There were lots of birds, with TREECREEPER and GOLDCREST amongst the commoner birds. A pair of CHIFFCHAFF were along the river as well as a GREY WAGTAIL and a flock of 20 SISKIN high in the alders. I left the area and drove  on to Stoke Park, a large urban park, mainly grass, but with some old trees. The usual parkland birds were present, STOCK DOVES, MISTLE THRUSHES and GREEN WOODPECKERS, birds that like a light scattering of trees.
Despite being on the doorstep of thousands of people it is quite easy to get away from people in these places. I would usually think that was a good thing, as would most people, but it also means people don't understand what they have in these places. These sites are only diagnosed as Local Nature Reserves, surely the least protection possible, and if people don't appreciate what they have here, it could all be lost the next time they are threatened by development.