TWELFTH NIGHT ON ORMSGILL REZZA

On the twelfth day of Christmas I went out to see
Twelve Gulls a-screaming
Eleven Coots a-diving
Ten Tits long-tailing
Nine Finches charming
Eight Mallard Mingling
Seven Swans a-swimming
Six Geese a-flying
Five Goldeneye
Four Call Ducks
Three Moorhens
Two Collared Doves
And a Heron in a tall tree.

Ormsgill Reservoir, “The Rezza,” is an artificial lake that was once part of the steel works in Barrow-in-Furness. There used to be two reservoirs, but one was filled in to create playing fields. Despite being bounded by a railway, two busy roads and housing estates, together they form a haven for nature. Hedged with hawthorn, gorse and brambles, with tree clad islands and stands of alder and willow, along with the extensive grazing for gulls, starlings and corvids provided by the football pitches and the cover provided by scrub and grassland beyond the gorse boundary, the whole area is rich in flora and fauna.

The poem came to me on a winter walk around the Rezza, one of many I take every week with my dog. Puppies are not conducive to ornithology! But I have spent many hours in previous years with my binoculars acquainting myself with the inhabitants.

All the birds mentioned are currently resident on the Rezza and its environs together with many others. The Heron is a solitary bird. I have never seen a pair on the Rezza. The Collared Doves are usually in pairs. There are probably about twenty Moorhens but only two white call ducks, which were once used by wildfowlers to lure mallard, and quite a few mallard are looking to mingle with them. I have yet to discover which ducks the Mallard mingled with to produce these three specimens.

The Goldeneye winter here every year before returning northwards to Scotland and beyond for the breeding season. There are quite a few Greylag Geese and Canada Geese that breed on the Rezza along with the Swans. I counted fifty Swans this summer. Only fifteen have stayed for the winter.

The Goldfinches flock in quite large numbers, especially in the trees at the north end of the playing field. In the autumn I saw what looked like hundreds of leaves that fluttered down to the ground. Then they fluttered back up! Goldfinches. The Long-tailed Tits form much smaller flocks but are always delightful.

The Coots number at least two hundred but are always disappearing under the water to feed, which makes them difficult to count. Hundreds of Herring Gulls visit the Rezza. But I had in mind the Black-headed Gulls which are very noisy and quarrelsome.

My apologies to the Tufted Ducks, Cormorants, Rooks, Crows, Jackdaws, Magpies, Starlings, Sparrows, Pigeons, Woodpigeons, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Robins, Wrens, Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Reed Buntings, Linnets (rare), Kestrels, Barn Owls, assorted Wagtails, and occasional Mergansers that never made it into the poem.

Then there are the summer visitors – Willow Warblers, Sedge Warblers, Swallows, Swifts, House Martins and Sand Martins. And all this in an area that was once the most inhospitable environment you could imagine for nature. The Rezza, an unofficial, inspirational nature reserve on my doorstep.

Update

Since I wrote this I can add a Great Northern Diver and a Brambling to the list.