The highlight of Saturday morning was an Otter on the main lake. Found by DK and JA, who thoughtfully gave me a call so I could see the animal as well, it spent 20-30 mins out in the middle of the lake, east of the island, just fishing. In the end we left just as it headed off to the south east corner of the lake.
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| Record shot of the Otter |
EG and DH were ringing in the Rough and catching reasonable numbers while we were there. Plenty of Blackcaps in the catch and the odd surprise.
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| Green Woodpecker (moulting everything!) |
A Goldcrest and a Common Whitethroat were a couple of the other ringing highlights.
It was a good morning for Raptors with Kestrel, Sparrowhawk, Common Buzzard and a distant Hobby all seen. We watched the Kestrel dive into a Willow and JA watched it feeding on a Dragonfly. It never ceases to amaze me how good their vision must be. It was across the other side of the river when it must have spotted the Dragonfly on a branch in the Willow!
A Common Sandpiper was heard on 100 Acre and along with a couple of Little Egrets was the highlight of that area.
As always at this time of year there are large areas of the park where it is quiet and then you come across a mixed flock of tits and warblers feeding in a particular tree and you might get 20-30 birds or more in a tiny area.
Sunday I went back to my Little Grebe spot on 100 Acre and was surprised to find they have finally hatched a chick. It's getting quite late in the year so hopefully the weather will hold up to give this little fellow a chance. Here a few pictures. (click for a full size version).
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| Adult (chick is on it's back hidden under the wings) |
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| Chick peeking over the adults shoulder |
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| Chick eating a small fish |
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| Chick eating a Blue-tailed damselfly |
Join us on Sunday morning (30th) for the next guided bird walk. Meet at 8am outside the visitor centre.
