The Thursday volunteers were back into day, and the task was yet again weeding the shore of Ibsley Water. Although the task is not the most exciting it is really important to maintain the open habitat for waders and wildfowl. There were twenty of us so we got a good bit done, including digging out some really tenacious willows.
Steve on the pull.
In the afternoon Adam and I moved the ponies around to the eastern side of Ibsley Water to graze the area by the Lapwing hide. This enabled us to count birds around areas of the lake not normally viewable, not a huge amount of interest but we did see 4 grey wagtails, 2 common sandpipers, 2 juvenile great crested grebes and a juvenile little grebe. The litte grebe was interesting as I hadn’t previously seen any young in this area but I guess it could have come from the near by Mockbeggar silt pond, which had contained breeding little grebes earlier in the year. We also recorded migrant hawker dragonflies, holly blue butterflies, field and meadow grasshoppers.
Holly blue butterflies in the act.
Other sightings and counts on the reserve today included 79 cormorants, 425 greylag geese and a large female peregrine terrifying the lapwing.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 