Saturday 12/04/2014

Another great morning in the park with a number of firsts for me for the year. Despite a cold wind this morning and overcast conditions, spring seemed to be in the air with a number of species seen mating including one of the pairs of Mute Swans on the Finger Lakes. I think these are the new pair but Orange 500 and her new mate are still hanging in there. The new pair were also nest building along one of the fingers this morning.

Mute Swan mating dance

The pair of Great Crested Grebes on Fingers were also seen doing the weed dance. There were also at least 3 Treecreepers along the Spit and the resident Common Buzzard was also about, being mobbed by a Crow as usual!

There was also some interesting behaviour from a Grey Heron seen from Kramer hide. There were four Herons in the area but one was obviously in breeding condition showing a lot of orange on its beak and it was moving branches about as if trying to build a nest. Feathers on the neck and crest were erect and there was a lot of bill clacking and sky pointing going on. Here are some pictures unfortunately obscured by branches.

Erect crest and neck feathers

Bill clacking

Sky pointing

There was quite a bit of Oystercatcher activity around the main lake island and it looks like there maybe one sitting on a nest on the island although it was obscured by foliage so we'll have to keep an eye on it. At least we know where we should be looking now.

Oystercatchers over the main lake

One of my year firsts was a singing Sedge Warbler at the STW reed bed. On to 100 Acre and we had the usual array of birds including the Black-winged Stilt which was very mobile this morning, Redshanks, Little Ringed Plovers, Ringed Plovers and Oystercatchers. Another year first was the 3 House Martins in with a group of Sand Martins and Swallows. There was also a White Wagtail but we dipped on Yellow Wagtail which had been seen by AG earlier. A Black Swan was a first for the site, initially on the crop field with 21 Mute Swans and later on the nearby lake.

Black Swan on 100 Acre

There were a lot of Blackcaps around the park this morning but Chiffchaffs seemed less numerous. There were also a handful of Willow Warblers around and when we returned to the Visitor a Common Buzzard passed overhead.

Common Buzzard

Earlier this week I popped down to the park in the evening to see what bats were around. While I was waiting for sun down quite a few Sand Martins came in over Fingers and the main lake, I estimated 60 when they all got up at the west end of the main lake. I was also fortunate to see a Swallow in with the flock over Fingers as I scanned through them with my bins.

I also came across this male Great Spotted Woodpecker in the Crescent.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Also of note were:

2 Shovelers (m) Fingers

5 Little Egrets

1 Oystercatcher

1 Buzzard calling from the Finger Lakes area

The bats showed up around 20:20 and good numbers of Pipistrelles were out and about when I left at 20:50. 

Saturday 17th August

Well it was another quiet morning in the most part. Finding the flock was the order of the day. The first one was in the Alders by the Crescent, a number of Tits, Chiffchaffs and Reed Warblers were moving through the area. A nice start but nothing compared to what we found in the South West corner of the park later on. In one of the Willows we found some Chiffchaffs so we stopped and scanned the tree and it soon became obvious that the tree was loaded with small Warblers and Tits. As we scanned they started to move off into the next tree across one of the fishing swims. This gave us a chance to count and we ended up with 17 Chiffchaffs and 2 Willow Warblers along with Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits and a couple of Robins. These are minimum numbers as there were others in the thicker scrub behind us that we could hear calling. One of the Willow Warblers was really yellow in colour and showed quite well:

Willow Warbler

Total Chiffchaffs for the morning was 29! Thanks to DK for that. Sparrowhawk, Kestrel and a Kingfisher were also seen. Green Woodpeckers are still active around the park and this Great Spotted Woodpecker posed at the top of the snag up by the STW bridge.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

So a quiet morning but that flock of Warblers was great to see. Next week is the guided bird walk on Sunday morning (25th). Meet at 8am outside the visitor centre.

For anyone interested in bats there is a guided bat walk this week on Friday 23rd at 8pm. You will need to book in advance for this as numbers are limited due to the number of bat detectors available. Please contact the Ranger if you would like to book. Tel: 01234 211182.

A small flurry

A small flurry of snow didn't stop the bird ringing session this morning in 'The Rough.' The birds came in small flurries themselves although there wasn't much movement or singing from them at all today. 12 fly over siskins, a bullfinch and a redwing were visual highlights.




Above: The 3rd Great Spotted Woodpecker (adult female) caught in 'the rough' during the last 2 sessions.

Below: An adult male blackbird. There are lots of these feasting on the berries at the moment.



Ringing Results

Saturday 27th Nov: 24 birds of 9 species: 2 Long Tailed Tits, 9 Blue Tits, 2 Great Tits, 1 Wren, 2 Dunnocks, 4 Blackbirds, 2 Goldcrest, 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker, 1 Robin.

Sunday 21st Nov: 30 birds of 10 species: 7 Long Tailed Tits, 6 Blue Tits, 5 Great Tits, 3 Wren, 1 Dunnock, 3 Blackbird, 1 Goldcrest, 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 1 Song Thrush and 1 Sparrowhawk.



Above: The sparrowhawk from last week sporting a big bluge - presumably its lunch!