I eventually ended up at Blashford this afternoon and so got to lock up the hides at the end of the day, obviously this was a selfless task and only incidentally allowed me to take a look around the reserve. In general things were pretty quiet apart from on Ibsley Water. There has been a huge growth of weed this summer, the most that I have ever seen and already there are a lot of coot, I suspect it could be a record autumn for them when the counting season starts in September. Less pleasing were the rather large numbers of Egyptian geese, including a large brood of late youngsters. This introduced species has not been much of an issue in the UK but is causing big problems on the near continent now with populations expanding very rapidly. Let’s hope they do not do the same thing here over the next few years.
There are a fair few large gulls about now and the motley gathering included one very neat juvenile yellow-legged gull, probably from the south of Europe, but just possibly more local as at least one pair have bred in Hampshire this year. The only other sighting of note was of at least 4 common sandpiper which were disturbed by a woodpigeon on the western shore of the lake.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 