Thank you to everyone who completed cards. We are one of only two residential parks to have gained the award for 13 years. They play an important role in gaining our award, and the photographs showed how everyone cares. Gaining our 13th Gold award shows that it is the consistent efforts of everyone that earns the award. Buzzards have been seen catching rabbits in the meadow, and then dining in gardens! Due to the wet weather we were let down by the local farmer cutting the hay.

Bob and Mack walk round the meadow most days. He has kindly agreed to write a quarterly newsletter. We hope that you are encouraged to walk and experience the sights and sounds of the visitors in the meadow.

“On my regular daily walks round the country park, winter can be seen to be slowly overtaking autumn. The leaves on the trees are almost gone and the bird song is almost non-existent.

The field fare have arrived back on the park from their summer sites across the North Sea, they will spend the winter feeding here until they return there in the late spring. They are very noisy with their “cha-cha-chack” call as they fly away.
Our regular green woodpeckers often greet me with their laughing calls as I disturb them on my walk around the park with Mack. Whilst quite a rare bird in a lot of areas, we are very lucky to have 3 or 4 green woodpeckers that live on the park and feed on the ants and larvae.

The quietness of the park is also broken by the chatter and squabbling of large families of long tailed tits, which I believe gather together in the winter and huddle together for warmth.

The buzzards have really settled in our area and are hunting quite low whilst being harassed by rooks, crows and even seagulls attacking them. With the onset of spring the rabbit population grew, however the young rabbits will fall prey to the buzzards and keep down the rabbit population naturally. It is wonderful to see the buzzards soar up into the sky on a thermal, giving out its shrill, mewing cry of “pee-oo”

Bob