16th April 2016

Plenty of migrants around the park over the last week or so. Weather has been variable with plenty of rain and some sun. Saturday it was the turn of the rain and although miserable for us humans it seemed to bring in the birds.

There were a lot of hirundines over the main lake when I arrived, mainly Sand Martins but a few Swallows mixed in. Swallows seemed to increase as I watched the flock skimming low over the water, many perched up on the buoys for a rest. Many of the Swallows were looking a bit worse for wear, hopefully there will be enough insects about so they can feed up and return to A1 condition for the breeding season.

Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers and Blackcaps are now in, in good numbers. I heard a single Lesser Whitethroat singing by the Labyrinth on Saturday morning. No Common Whitethroats in the park yet although DK had one on 100 Acre in the week.

Chiffchaff

The Finger Lakes Great Crested Grebes seem to have worked out what they are doing, nest building has kicked into high gear with occasional pauses for mating.

Mating Grebes

The neighbouring Coots already have 4 chicks but border wars continue with the Coots one door down!

Coot making a splash on the edge of his territory

Other species also have young by the looks of this Woodpigeon egg that I noticed floating on the Finger Lakes on Sunday morning. The neat edge indicates a successful hatching rather than a predation. The adult bird would then have carried the shell away from the nest to avoid attracting predators to the area. 

Wood Pigeon egg.

I was hoping to photograph the Grebes on Sunday morning as we had a lovely clear start to the day but they were much too busy with the nest building and mating to bother coming in front of the camera. The Coots were a little less shy and the male Mute Swan (Orange 180) did a quick check of his territory.

Coot

Mute Swan

As usual 100 Acre is the star location at the moment with a good variety of wildfowl and waders. Wigeon numbers are way down and I expect the last few to depart anytime. A pair of Red-crested Pochards have been around for the couple of weeks at least so wondering if they may nest if they haven't already. With all of the flood water waders have been stopping off as they pass by on their journeys north. On Saturday morning there were 14 Dunlins along with a couple of Little Ringed Plovers, a couple of Greenshanks, a Redshank and the usual Oystercatchers.

It's always worth looking through the Wagtail flocks at this time of year and on Saturday, with the Pied Wagtails there were a couple of Yellow Wagtails and a couple of White Wagtails.

White Wagtail

A couple of Wheatears were my first of the year and on Castle Mill there was a single Shelduck which I always like to see.

Back to the park and it's that time of year again so the rangers have started the egg oiling to control the Canada Goose numbers. The main lake island was the first port of call and the numbers show that we really need to keep doing this work to keep the numbers down.

• Canada 40 nests – 234 eggs treated.

The following nests were noted but left alone.

• One Greylag nest – didn’t count the eggs.

• One Egyptian Goose nest with 6 eggs.

• One Swan nest.

• At least 6 mallard nests.

The Canada Goose eggs are oiled and left in the nest so the adults keep sitting but the eggs won't hatch. If the eggs were just taken away the Geese would likely lay again so the rangers would have to keep visiting each nest to remove eggs throughout the season. There will be plenty more to do, all along the river as far up stream as Queens Park. There will be some that don't get found but at least we won't have hundreds of extra geese this year.

Canada Goose

Easter Weekend

With a storm on the way for later in the weekend and the Good Friday forecast looking good it was an early start on Friday to try to make the most of the good light. With 100 Acre still under water it was back to the Spit for another go with the pair of Great Crested Grebes on the Finger Lakes. Without a hide there is a lot more waiting involved for the birds to get used to my being there and, even then, they are still not approaching as close as I would like. Anyhow here are a some shots from the session which mostly turned into a Coot session!

Coot

Coot feeding

Great Crested Grebe

The Grebes didn't spend much time in front of me, in fact the female seemed very interested mating but the male looked less than interested, you might even say confused by the whole thing. They have built a platform from weed and reeds and the female kept posturing and laying down on the platform but the male refused to mount her and in the end she gave up. Hopefully the male will get the message and we'll have a nest and some eggs in the not too distant future.

The spot I am using for the photography is right on the border between 2 Coot territories and is a regular feeding area for one of the pairs so there was more opportunity to photograph the Coots. Unfortunately the territorial disputes were all too far away for any decent shots.

Saturday was grey and windy but did remain dry as forecast so I had a wander around the park with DK. We had all the usual stuff the highlight being the first good number of Sand Martins which peaked at ~29 over the main lake. Still no Blackcaps but there are several singing Chiffchaffs dotted around the park. A handful of Siskins are also still sticking around but I'm sure they will depart fairly soon. It has been a good winter for Siskins in the park. They have stayed throughout and have been seen most days.

On Sunday 15 people joined me for the guided bird walk. The forecast looked good for the morning but as usual it proved less than accurate. Things started well with ~20 Sand Martins over the main lake and a small party of Siskins on one of the Alders along the Spit. The Siskins were very confiding and hung around to give great views for everyone. They weren't put off by the group walking past and were still there when we came back a few minutes later. I'd managed to get some photo's of them in the same tree before the walk started.

Female Siskin

Female Siskin

Female Siskin

Further along the Spit I showed the group a very well used Otter spraint point. There was some very fresh spraint in evidence along with quite a few older ones. Otters tend to find an obvious place to deposit a spraint and this case it is an old mole hill. This acts as a territorial marker post for any Otters in the area.

Moving on we checked out the "Heronry" which is very slow to progress this year. After last years 2 nests we had been hoping it would continue to develop but so far only a single nest is consistently occupied. On that nest one of the birds has spent some time sitting this weekend so they might have eggs but it's not certain as yet. The other nest has been occupied at various times but not consistently.

A single female Teal and a pair of Shoveler was the best we could muster at the Kramer hide. Over on Kingsmead we had three Common Buzzards over the woods and Cormorants showing juvenile, non-breeding and breeding plumages which was most helpful.

No Otters at the sewage works bridge but the Cetti's Warbler did sing for us and Kingfisher did a brief flypast before we moved on to 100 Acre.

Along the cycle track I showed the group a beautiful Long-tailed Tit's nest before we moved onto 100 Acre and the weather caught up with us with a heavy shower and hail. We managed to stick it out and even found a rather miserable looking Redshank on the island during the heaviest part of the downpour. As it eased off we found a couple of Oystercatchers and various ducks including Gadwall, Wigeon and a pair of Red-crested Pochard. A Snipe gave brief views as it flew in and promptly disappeared in a clump of grass.

Having got a good soaking I gave the group the choice of continuing on or heading back and with another downpour looking likely the decision was made to head back.

It was a pretty good walk with a good number of species recorded, shame about the soaking but that's nature! The next guided bird walk is Sunday April 24th at 9am, meet outside the visitor centre, hopefully we should be inundated with summer migrants by then!

Update 21/09/2015

It's been a while since my last post so thought it was time for an update. The August guided bird walk was a bit disappointing from a species point of view. We had a very good turnout for an 8am start but the birds just didn't play ball. At the moment if you find a roving Tit flock you never know what you might find tagging along with them and a sunny morning always helps. Unfortunately during the guided walk we didn't get either so the species count was a bit down. A Kingfisher flypast on the Finger Lakes was a good start and most people managed to see it. We did have great views of a Kestrel and a couple of Buzzards on 100 Acre although we did have to work for the Buzzards as recent ploughing made the going rather tough.

In the last couple of weeks things seem to be improving a bit, especially on 100 Acre where Meadow Pipits, Skylarks and Linnets are showing again and a flock of ~80 Lapwings flew in on Sunday morning. Fingers crossed for the September guided walk which is on Sunday 27th starting at 9am outside the visitor centre.

Last weekend a Kingfisher showed well outside the Kramer hide, even staying put for a few photo's.

Kingfisher outside Kramer Hide

This weekend a Common Sandpiper showed well in the duck feeding area. We normally only see these early in the morning before the park gets busy but this individual was still around mid morning and seemingly oblivious to passing people as it hunted for insects in the grass.

Common Sandpiper in the duck feeding area!

On 100 Acre last weekend we found this Wasp Spider. This is a relative new comer to the country but is spreading fast and although not a first for the county we do think it is the first for the park.

Wasp Spider on 100 Acre

In my last post I reported that the Little Grebe's I have been watching all summer had finally had a chick. I have been back twice since I posted but unfortunately I have to report that the chick did not make it. It was rather late in the year for a new chick to appear but I had expected it to survive. Sadly I have not seen any sign on either of my recent visits. Both the adults are still in the same area and appear fine although it was noticeable this week that the summer plumage was beginning to fade.

It was quite misty early on Sunday morning and there were up to 5 Coots in the bay with the Little Grebes. They were the first to show as the light levels came up.

Coot in the mist

The Little Grebes were actively fishing around the edge of the bay and I thought they might be catching invertebrates as they were sticking close to the reeds but this one was making a dent in the Stickleback population!

Little Grebe with Stickleback

Another Stickleback bites the dust.

We had a great turnout for the volunteer task at the beginning of the month and we started the thinning out of the W plantation (AKA the Woodland Walk). Plenty more work to do in there so we might be back again next month. Check out the blog for details of volunteering opportunities in the park, or give the rangers a call.