Exploring Watergate Forest Park

Following on from my post earlier this month, Exploring Marsden Rock, here I have another set of images from one of our 30 Days Wild out exploring. We were looking for new places to adventure to and after a quick look on a trails app that had sat dormant on my phone for months, we came across Watergate Forest Park. 

It's a bit further of a drive than our usual walks and I was shocked once there how big the place actually is considering its destination. There's even a huge car park, larger than most country parks I've ever been to so I assume it must be rather popular. Luckily the day we went was a Wednesday (as always) and around 7am, so apart from the odd dog walker it was relatively quiet, to begin with.

I really had no idea what to expect apart from the fact there was apparently a loop walk around a lake. Here is what we found there...

As we left the car park and headed onto a wide tree-lined trail, the much expected and wanted wildlife seemed scarce. A few Wood Pigeons dotted the odd tree top and as the trail split and narrowed we were joined with wildflowers, bees and butterflies and even spotted (though sadly didn't catch on camera due to a dog scaring it off) a beautiful wild rabbit. 
We are never the type to follow the most used path and so although we thought we were headed towards the lake, apparently we branched off and ended up finding a lovely pond and waterfall area. A beautiful mammy Mallard and her babies were chilling here, though we could hear a little shout of distress. Upon investigation, we noticed a baby had fallen down a huge drop and gotten split from its family! After a short conversation, we decided to try and reunite them and Mr H went to the bottom of the stream, climbed up toward the baby and tried to corner it in hopes of scooping them up to lift back to mam and siblings. What ended up happening was the baby had other ideas and was rightfully a little frightened so made a break for it downstream! As I followed its journey to the bottom I saw a surprising sight, baby had met up with another handful of siblings! We didn't want to stress them anymore so moved away but had a feeling that daddy Mallard wasn't far off...

From here we moved towards the lake, I had a paddle in another stream, and we saw a Buzzard overhead. Other birds spotted or spent time with included a Grey Wagtail, Mute Swan and Cygnets, Coot (and babies), Moor Hen (and babies), Common Tern, Robin, Bullfinch, Raven, Wood Pigeon, and a Dunnock! 
So as you can see it ended up being an amazing exploration after all! Hopefully, as Autumn approaches we will be able to return and explore some more.

Until next time...