My final walk of 2025 was to complete a winter bird survey around Eltham Park. It was a cold, frosty morning but he sun was shining bright as I set out.
The roads leading up to Eltham Park was quiet although there were a few House Sparrows and a Coal tit, a new species for the survey, in a garden near Glenesk Rd.
Entering Eltham Park, there were Crows, Woodpigeons and Ring-necked Parrakeets along with Robins, Blue and Great Tits.
At the pond there were a large group of Mallard along with a few Moorhen and a single Stock Dove. The Grey Wagtail that had been present on my last survey, back in October, showed briefly before disappearing behind an island.
From here my route takes me through Shepherdleas Woods, which echoed to the calls of the Ring-necked parrakeets. I had hoped that there would be some winter Thrushes here. Redwing and Fieldfare, which arrive here for the winter, have been slow arriving this year due to the warm autumn, but in the week before my walk there were more reports and so I was hopefully that there might be some in the woods, but if there were I didn’t see them and it was difficult to hear anything over the calls of the parrakeets.
Emerging from the woods I entered Oxleas Meadows. I had been hoping, given that it was a bright sunny clear day, that there would have been some birds of prey flying over the Meadows or the adjacent woods, but the sky was empty apart from the occasional Woodpigeon or Magpie.
So no birds of prey and no winter thrushes, but all the same a very nice walk in lovely surroundings in the winter sun.
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