Day Twenty Three - Visit to a Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve

Day Twenty Three - A Visit to Westport Lake

I thought it was time that, as the 30 Days Wild challenge is being organised by the Wildlife Trusts that we had better visit one.  It is a  place we visit quite often to walk around the lakes and sometimes along the canal.

 

This is the fairly new visitor centre at  Westport Lake where we always stop for a morning coffee after our walk and sometimes buy bird food too.

 Here are some photos we took on our way round the larger lake

 Grebe

Coots

 Young coots

 Nesting Coot

 Bunny

Pied Wagtail

Giant Mace

 A hybrid goose - looks like a white goose/greylag cross

 This poor white goose has Angel Wing a deformity found mostly in ducks, geese and swans and is thought to be caused by people feeding them white bread.

There are loads of rock doves at the lake or 'town hall pigeons' as my neighbour calls them.  I found myself looking at them more closely, they had so  many different patterns and colourings.

We ventured up into the wild flower meadow, which was wonderful - full of yellow rattle, vetch and Yorkshire fog as well as many other plants and flowers.

 Woundwort

 Wild Rose in the hedgerows

 The Visitor Centre is well run by the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust