Bushy Park Nature Diary - March

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So last month’s diary was a weird one because of all the heavy rain and storms making it hard to get out and about in the park. I was looking forward to March because it marks the beginning of Spring and those first days of brightness and warmth. Well for the first week it wasn’t too bad, and I ended up taking a trip down to Frensham Common in the sunshine to look for a Great Grey Shrike. I found it, with quite a bit of help from the birders who already knew where to look, but as we were looking at the bird there was a slight hint of worry running through the group. Should we be standing so close to each other?

Fast forward to now and the answer is no, we shouldn’t. The novel Coronavirus has disrupted every part of daily life, up to and including the time we are able to spend outside, and now the time I spend in the park is incredibly precious. I can’t really complain too much – the lockdown rules are there to protect the most vulnerable in society and stop the health service from becoming overwhelmed. It’s for them that, for the moment, I don’t have the free access to nature that I’m used to and it makes me realise just how lucky I am. To be cut off from a lot of the natural world for a short time is a small price to pay if it means that more of us are still there to enjoy it in the future.

Although movement is highly restricted there are still opportunities to enjoy the nature. For the moment I can still go out for one form of exercise, so while it’s still open this exercise is going to be a good walk in the park. We’re mostly restricting ourselves to early morning and evening to ensure that we keep a distance from everyone else. On our brief walks there has been a lot going on. As expected, the toads are out and about and heading to the park’s ponds for mating and spawning. I haven’t seen any of the newts yet but it’s unusual to see them out on the paths. The owls are still very active and vocal and we’ve had wonderful views of tawny owls in the tall trees near the Laurel Road gate which has been an enchanting highlight of evening walks. The birds out and about in the daylight have also been getting vocal in time for Spring. There have been drumming Great Spotted Woodpeckers all over the place, chiffchaffs and blackcaps singing their hearts out and while we were trying to keep our distance on some of the grassy paths we had some amazing views of a kestrel. The trees are also starting to show signs of bursting back into leaf so in spite of the dire news and the crisis we’re now confronting, life is continuing.

I’m not sure what the next month will bring. If Royal Parks decide to lock up the gates then it will be personally heart-breaking but I would fully respect that decision. It might be that next month’s diary is about what I see on the tree outside the window but I hope that we’ll still be able to make regular forays into the park. The days might seem incredibly dark but hold on to each other, and hold on to the natural world which in whatever form you can get it will provide us with so much solace in the next few months.

Keep safe!

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