Roe, a deer

Posted:

Oct

2015

Category
Environmental

Words by

James Hutchinson

The Castle Course is showing us its usual diversity with regular sightings of migrant and resident birds, aquatic plants and even a pair of beautiful roe deer.

These past few weeks have been hectic to say the least with many new recordings of wildflowers and fungi whereas the bird count has now reached a massive 90!

Firstly however, The Castle Course is showing us its usual diversity with regular sightings of migrant and resident birds, aquatic plants and even a pair of beautiful roe deer (header image).

This year’s fungi season is giving us a wonderful display of fruits such as orange peel fungus, ivory funnel, white domecap, dung roundhead, many types of waxcap and a huge field mushroom – many thanks to Dr May Richardson and Ian Marshall for their help in identifying these organisms and I look forward to the next foray!

The Eden Estuary has been crammed with interesting sightings of late including upwards of 2000 barnacle geese. This type of goose is not known for landing and staying in the estuary but the cold snap in Northern Russia has resulted in them arriving a little earlier than usual. Along with the geese, you may be able to see shellduck, wigeon, teal, greenshank, knot and bar-tailed godwit just off the 12th tee of the Old Course or many parts of the Eden Course. If you do find yourself slightly offline whilst playing the Eden Course, take a look out for the new sign which was developed by Dr Clare Maynard. The sign highlights the great work she, her team and the Links have been undertaking on the estuary.

One more bird which caught our attention recently was the great spot by Simon Connah (Old Course Deputy Course Manager and previous blogger) of a little grebe in the Swilcan Burn. The bird showed up on the 14th and stayed for a few hours before departing to warmer climes but is more than welcome back anytime it wants.