Stover Country Park is one of my personal favourite places to go birding. The variety of birds flickers back and forth over the course of a year. The mix of coniferous and deciduous woodland bordering a lake with many nooks and crannies, it’s hard not to love.
The car park is coated in towering pines, which sometimes hold a coal tit or goldcrest, but you often have to squint! As you stroll down the gravel track towards the lake, pigeons burst from birches and you occasionally find a jay or two. The first part of the lake appears but it seems quite compact, the dappled shade creating bars across the water. Coots, moorhens and mallards often find this a convenient spot to hang out.
On your left there is a wooden bridge over a stream flowing off from the little pond. Across this is a gravelly area that plays host to swans, ducks and gulls, all clamouring to gulp down a bit of the duck food that was tossed in to the lake.
As you carry on along the meandering path, little holes in the brambles hold benches giving views through the thicket growing out over the banks. Further along is a big wooden bridge. Ducks are often carried by the current up behind the bridge. It was here that I once had a memorable encounter with a rusty headed female goosander.
Hopping across the bridge, the rebellious looking goosander’s spiky head feathers stuck out at the nape. It followed the current quickly and then exploded in a flash of white water. It is here also that I have had a close encounter with a kingfisher perched in the reeds. A dazzling blue and orange bird swaying in the wind.
Not much appears as you stroll across the side of the lake. Winding paths lead off into the woodland carpeted in bogs. Once you reach a corner however it is wonderful. An aged, bare tree juts out across the surface of the water. Ducks are often sat on it’s upwards facing branches. Sometimes there are a few rats which scamper across the bench, scoffing bird seed.
The Second to last main area is the bird feeders which are visible from the boardwalk. Chaffinches, nuthatches, blue great, coal and sometimes marsh tits, pigeons and stock doves. A buzzard has sometimes visited the feeders, perching on an overhanging branch. The boardwalk is on stilts, because of a dramatic change of level. At the time of building this boardwalk, they took the opportunity to rise it up into the canopy, giving a birds-eye view of the area.
Finally, there is a bird hide looking out over the lake. Swans, ducks, geese, gulls and everything in between.
Stover is a place I hold dearly in my heart. Though it may not be the best place for birding in the world, it has given me the gems of the crown that is the birds of Britain.
The Bovey Birder 