Newtown Nature Reserve Explored

These are some of the photos I took when Eileen and I visited Newtown Nature Reserve in February and the reserve is managed by the National Trust.  This is the only National Nature Reserve on the Isle of Wight.  It is a beautiful retreat that has something to offer boat owners, walkers, wildlife enthusiasts and historians or just those in search of peace and tranquillity.  I suggest as I have quite a lot of shots today, you put it into slide mode and just come with me as I walk around the Reserve.  

Every time I visit Newtown I see these Mute Swans.

After we parked the car, we walked along the verges that had been specially planted with wide plants and Daffodils.

Along came a local dressed for summer rather than February weather. 

We called him, the Bare legged Wader.

 Lots of birds were singing and this is a Song Thrush.

Before going any further we made a ‘loo’ stop and on the way in Eileen showed my this Swallow’s nest.  They had used the same nest for the past 2 years, the white bit at the top was a refurbishment that they added last year, so Eileen will watch to see what happens this year.

A Dunnock serenaded us as we passed by.

You can see it was a sunny but crisp February day and we walked out to the boat house.  This is a view from it.

These were Dark bellied Brent Geese.

This is the Lesser Spotted Margaret.

This is the Greater Spotted Eileen.

To the right of the boat house were we were bird watching from, there is a little island some distance away where there were quite a number of gulls resting.  On closer inspection, other than the Black headed gulls there were 29 Mediterranean Gulls.

On another little island even further away using our telescopes, we spotted Grey Plover.  It is with a Black headed Gull in this shot.

Here are 2 more Grey Plover, this time with Pale bellied Brent Geese.

Meadow Pipit

This is the path we walked round. Perhaps you can just see the boat house (far right in the shot).

I liked the way the path was edged by these wooden round posts.

Shelduck

Oystercatcher

We walked back to the car a different way, passing a few houses and in an orchard we found this tree called Cornus Mas.  Neither of us had seen it before and it certainly did not look like the normal Cornus with bright yellow or red stems that I know.  However it did ha these wonderful yellow flowers which is lovely to see in February.

Chaenomeles - Quince A lovely pink variety.

Eileen thought this was blossom from a plume tree. Anyone know?

I have seen Blue Vinca often however this as a lovely white variety.

Finally, we found this plant which so far, neither of us can ID so I am hoping someone else will help me out here.

Tomorrow I will continue with what we saw at Newtown Reserve however I hope you enjoyed walking round the reserve today.

Thank you for visiting and also to all those people who  kindly left comments on any of my posts.