CES visit 10 - 4th August

Overcast almost to the end of the session ... and breezy with it. The best session so far this year with 40 birds captured. Todays "big bucks" were Garden Warbler (5 juvs and 1 ad. male in arrested moult - see pic) and Greenfinch (3 juvs and 3m & 2f). A small party of juv LTTs came through and 4 were caught. All these were in heavy moult (one of the few species where the juvvies moult 100%, too). Three Blue Tits was a turn-up - for us, anyway. The rest consisted of 2 Willies (pic is of the juv., the other was a cracking ad.m in new plumage), 1 Chiff (see pic - juv in heavy body moult), 2 juv W/throats, 2 Reed Ws, 2 Juv Wrens, 2 Robin, a young Goldfinch, a juv Bullfinch, and 3 Blackbirds (1 new juv). Joined today by Ed Green, back from "wet" Gloucester. 250-300 Jackdaws present at first light and the male S/hawk was around, too. Otherwise, all the usual suspects for early August.

Last day of July

A short mornings ringing in the Crescent, today, brings the newly ringed birds this year to 250 with 78 retraps. 42 new Reed Warblers plus 10 from previous years have been caught so far.

This morning's tally was a very tatty female Blackbird, 2 juvvy Wrens, a young Chiff and a young Dunnock, nine Reeds and an adult female Kingfisher, making 15 in all.

CES visit 10 should take place over the week-end, weather permitting.

Bat Walk - Monday 30th July

A good turnout for the guided bat walk tonight. After a short briefing in the visitor centre we set off across the meadows to the finger lakes, stopping regularly and scanning the sky for high flying noctules. Unfortunately none were seen early on so we continued around the outskirts of the finger lakes complex to the navigation channel where we picked up our first bats, Pipistrelles feeding over the river. After a short stop to watch we continued along to the corner of east fingers where pips were again in evidence swooping about and diving down over the lake to grab an unfortunate insect. we stood for a while watching them and listening to there calls from the bat detectors that John Bishop and a couple of the visitors had with them. As they scanned up and down the frequencies a different call betrayed the presence of Daubenton's bat. These were seen later as they skimmed low across the water. Noctule's were also seen later as we stood and watched more pip's at the beach are of the main lake. As we headed bake along the main path toward the visitor centre we were entertained by any number of pip's darting about above our heads between the main lake and the finger lakes and it was a glorious site as we turned and watched the full moon rising above the trees with bats darting back and forth in front of it. A great evening, who needs TV when you have live wildlife on your doorstep. Look out for the next bat walk in September, it's well worth it.