little grebe – fewer than usual are on Ibsley Water this year
Today we did the monthly waterfowl count of all the lakes in the Blashford complex, this allows us to know how many birds there are across all the lakes as a whole and what proportion are using each individual lake. Perhaps surprisingly the lakes that hold the greatest numbers of birds are not the same each year. The number of birds are determined by the amount of food, in the main weed and this varies widely from year to year and between one lake and another. Unfortunately this winter looks as though it is not going to be one of high numbers as weed growth seems to be relatively poor over many of the lakes. I will leave Ed to post something on the totals we counted tomorrow and who knows perhaps numbers will build later in the winter.
lapwings – a flock of over a hundred were by Ibsley Water today
Yesterday’s slime mould had mostly turned to slime today, but the splitgill fungus is still growing slowly. Nearby I found this small group of candlesnuff fungus.
candlesnuff fungus
It was quite warm so we ate lunch outside where we were joined by a tiny fellow diner, a small true bug which was actually eating some of the bread crumbs from Ed’s sandwich.
bread-eating bug
Apart from thinking it is some sort of plant bug I have got no further with identifying it as yet.
During the course of the day quite a range of birds were recorded on the reserve. Both the bittern and great white egret were seen on Ivy Lake. At the Woodland hide and brambling and lesser redpoll were at the feeders. I came across three chiffchaff at various places around the lakes, perhaps they will be around for the winter now. Usually I see very few in November, the autumn passage birds mostly leave in late October and the wintering birds don’t usually arrive until the start of December. At dusk the gull roost once again played host to the adult ring-billed gull.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 