From a heatwave to much needed rain, we’ve been having fun at Blashford!

It’s not been quite as busy here with events as in previous summers, but the events we have run really have been fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed Family River Dipping – seeing children lying down in the river with their masks on, looking into the underwater world of the Dockens.

Another highlight was Family Den Building! I love building dens, and I challenge any adult to look back on their den-builds of the past and not remember them with a smile. We had beautifully sunny weather… which was perfect… because of course, the dens had to be ‘tested’ for waterproofness! It’s one of my favourite bits of the session… wandering about with my watering can to see if anybody inside gets wet when it ‘rains’. The only drawback (which the children find absolutely hilarious), is that I really am not tall enough to reach the tops of the dens properly, so they may stay dry inside, but I usually end up with half the watering can down my pouring arm!

Wildlife Tots had a break over the summer, and it was great to have them all back on the 5th September. We had a ‘teddy bear’s picnic’ – everyone brought a teddy (my bear is called William), and we went to the campfire area to search for other cuddly toy animals that our bears could ‘picnic’ with. Then (with the help of some tall people.. some might call them adults, but really they’re big kids) we built some dens! I was thoroughly impressed with how well the Tots handled the pole-carrying, and were guided to tie knots with good concentration and dexterity.

After the dens were constructed we all gathered around a small campfire and toasted bread for butter and jam. We learnt about campfire safety, and made sure our teddies stayed away from the fire. After some tasty snacks it was the end of the session, and the heavens opened! I had elected to dismantle the dens myself…. and so as the Tots and tall people went home… I sat in a very well made den for a bit and contemplated the rest of my day.

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Wildlife Tots enjoying the Dockens Water

Not content with only getting into the river the week before, I decided Monday’s Tots session would also be river themed! I am delighted to say that we had a fully booked morning session for Tots, and ran an afternoon session as well – one boy enjoyed himself so much that he came to both sessions.

Our first was to make paper boats (or rather, my task the night before).. was to learn how to fold a piece of a4 paper into a boat. PAPER! I hear you cry! But PAPER SINKS!? Ah ha, well…. at Blashford we are rather clever you see.

A4 paper at the ready, we scribbled and scribbled and scribbled and scribbled.. and … you guessed it…. scribbled some more…. with wax crayons, until both sides of our paper was completely covered, and WATERPROOFED!

Once we had waterproofed our paper, everybody followed along with my folding (well done parents, and children!) until we had created some lovely little boats.

We walked to the campfire area and sat around in a circle, heard a little bit of a story and then meandered our way to the river, picking little ‘passengers’ (flowers, grass heads etc) for our voyage down the river. When we arrived at the river we got in, lined up and with an assortment of adults to ‘field’ for boats so we didn’t lose any down the river proper, we let them go and had a boat race. Well, we actually had about 5 boat races!

Once we had finished racing, and ‘passengers’ had gone overboard, we all had a go at river dipping. The Tots loved splashing in the river finding all sorts of tiny creatures, and we didn’t have anywhere near as many full wellies as I had imagined. A huge thank you to the parents in the afternoon session, I was helping the children wash their hands at the tippy tap, and as I got back to the riverside all the equipment was rinsed, packed up and ready to go back to the centre. A busy day, but a wonderful one.

Family River Splash!

We couldn’t let half term pass without trying to soak some children in a river… and so that’s (almost) exactly what we did!

The weather has been quite changeable recently, but thankfully this morning began bright and sunny. I got to Blashford and enlisted the help of Jacki one of our wonderful volunteers who was here for the regular volunteer party, to help me take all the equipment down to the river. Wheelbarrow full (although maybe not quite as full as Jim manages), and we trundled off to the river. ‘Danger’ deep water flags were set out… we don’t actually want to lose children in the deep bits, and nets, trays, ID guides too.

On arrival at the Education Centre the children engrossed themselves in colouring and water-themed word searches, and once we had everybody we got started. Our first stop was to find some rushes to make some rush boats to float down the river. After demonstrating how to fold the rushes and wrap them to secure the ‘boat’ and create a mast we all searched for a suitable leaf to be a sail. Some rush boats ended up a little top heavy!

We walked down to the river and followed the meander to race our boats and to see how the water feels whooshing past our boots in the deeper sections of meander. As we walked back to the bridge we hunted for pooh sticks, and with a yell of THREE, TWO, ONE, DROP! we raced them under the bridge.

I explained how to river dip, and what we might find, and then everybody got into the river again! It wasn’t long before the depth of water inside some people’s wellies was actually deeper than the water they were stood in, but they didn’t seem to mind!

We caught a lot of little freshwater shrimp, and all the families did well at using the guides to identify what they caught, and then we manage to catch some tiny little bullhead fish too.

Nobody really wanted to get out of the river, so we overran a little bit, and did a final pooh sticks challenge to finish. Once the welly boot water had been tipped back into the river it was time to wash hands and have some lunch. Well timed too, as not long after we stopped it started to rain.

Bird ringing at Blashford

Brenda has been ringing birds at Blashford for many years, and it has been a pleasure to observe some of her winter ringing sessions. The practise of bird ringing generates information on the survival, productivity and movement of birds, and is an important method to help us understand locally and nationally (and globally!) how and why populations are changing.

All bird ringing is conducted following BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) protocols by trained and licenced ringers, with assistance from supervised trainees. If you would like to learn more about this head to https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/ringing.

Long tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus)

A morning ringing… it’s an early start!
Birds are most active in the morning (not the sort of just before lunch lazy morning, the real ‘sun just got up and is only just peeking over the trees’ type of early!), so the mist nets are set-up to make the most of this, and as a general trend more birds are caught early, with the numbers tapering down until the nets are closed around lunchtime.

Close up of a mist net. Mist net including poles and guy ropes.

Mist nets are an invaluable piece of equipment for ornithologists, providing a safe method to catch birds for research. A mist net is made of very fine nylon netting and is almost invisible, hence the term ‘mist’. Each net has 5 evenly spaced thicker horizontal strings called trammels, which are secured to vertical poles at each end of the net to ensure even tension. Between each trammel is fine netting that arcs down into a sort of pouch. They fly into the net and fall into a pouch and await careful extraction. This is the part I find fascinating. On each net check (regular intervals throughout the session) Brenda determines which side of the net the bird flew into, so that she can extract it successfully. She uses a variety of holds to ensure the bird stays still and can be untangled from the net without harm. Once extracted they are placed into a small drawstring bag for safekeeping and taken back to the area which has been set up for processing.

Birds waiting to be processed. Table laid out with ringing equipment.

Biometric data is taken for each bird (e.g. wing length, weight) and age/sex determined (depending on time of year) by identifiable features related to moult, feather colouration and feather shapes, or if during certain times of year the presence of e brood patch or cloacal protuberance (CP). If the bird is a re-capture then it will already have a ring, but if it’s a new bird then a small metal ring is fitted around the right leg which has a unique identifiable number. The rings are made of wide, flat metal, which is pressed around the leg, ensuring the join is smooth and the edges are flush. Once the ringer is confident the ring can move up and down the leg with absolutely no impact on the bird’s movement, it is then released. Brenda has a fantastic way of teaching and is exceptionally calm and patient and has one bespoke piece of kit that she made herself, a knitted bird! This bird can be used to practise specific handling techniques, be fitted with bird rings etc, so that when a trainee comes to handle a live bird they are more confident in their abilities.

These unique ring numbers are vital, as the data on re-capture can tell us how old the bird is, where it may have flown from (therefore its range), helping to inform bird conservation efforts. This morning we caught around 25 birds, and (bearing in mind I class myself as ‘not really a birder’) being able to see so many birds up close and learn about their markings has really helped me in my quest to be better at bird ID!

Lesser redpoll (Acanthis cabaret)

Stick Man arrives at Blashford Lakes, spends time with the Tots, what route does he take?

The Stick Men began life as a pile of sticks, and were soon brought to life by our Wildlife Tots group. They collected all different shapes and sizes of leaves to create fantastic skirts, trousers, and even legwarmers for their Stick Men! The leafy hairdos and headdresses were ornate, and that left only one thing, a scarf to keep the stickmen warm.

As Tracy read through the story, we moved around the reserve. First, we took our Stick Men on a walk towards the river, to get away from the fictional dog who would have used them for a game of fetch!

The next obstacle in our Stick Men’s quest to get home… pooh sticks! We gathered some sticks and went to the Docken’s bridge, careful to drop our sticks and not our Stick Men. 1…2….3…. DROP! Sticks into the river and Stick Men safe, we ran to the other side of the bridge to see who would win.

Having survived the pooh stick game, our Wildlife Tots and Stick Men moved on to our next activity, building a nest for a swan. We gathered some sticks and put them all together, then counted out some ‘eggs’ for our cuddly toy swan to keep warm. In the next part of the story, the Stick Man drifts down the river and out to sea, washing up on the beach.

Tracy read on, “Here comes a dad with a spade in his hand. Stick Man oh Stick Man, beware of the sand!’ ‘A mast!’ yells the dad, ‘An excellent mast!” and our next activity, making sandcastles of course! We got pots, sticks and leaves, and using sand next to the river a village of castles was made.

We left the river, some castles were trampled by Tots feet, and we made our way to the campfire area, stopping in some muddy puddles for a splash on the way. It’s winter in the story now, and the Stick Man’s next hurdle on his way home… is being mistaken for the perfect ‘stick arm’ for a snowman. As is the usual way with Hampshire… it’s not snowy despite it being winter, so we created doughmen instead of snowmen!

The group scrambled around to find good sticks for the arms, and charcoal for eyes and buttons. We then had a quick briefing on campfire safety, and, keeping all our Stick Men safe, Tracy lit a small fire. Enthralled by the campfire, the Tots were the quietest they had been all morning, and listened intently to the last part of the story. The Stick Man in the story helps Father Christmas escapes the fire, helps to deliver the presents, and then gets returned safe and sound to his Family Tree. After putting out the fire, we walked back to the centre and all the newly created Stick Men got in the car with their Tots, ready to go on another adventure.

Year’s End

The last day of 2018 and I was out doing my December waterbird count, numbers are generally low this winter, but there was variety. I started with Ibsley Water, the most numerous species was coot with 327 other species exceeding one hundred were wigeon 206 and lapwing 288. Gulls are not counted but at dusk were present in thousands. During the day the highlights from Ibsley Water were black-necked grebe, a dark-bellied brent goose, water pipit(s), first winter Caspian gull and a first winter Mediterranean gull, in addition the flock of linnet were feeding outside Tern hide once again.

Elsewhere the bittern was on show at Ivy North hide, along with water rail and Cetti’s warbler and at dusk two great white egret. On Blashford (Spinnaker) Lake during the day there were two great white egret and a good number of wildfowl including 300 coot. A further 299 coot were on Rockford Lake and a water pipit on the shore close to the path was something I had not seen there before.

No doubt tomorrow will be busy and there are a nice range of birds to see along with the extra attraction of the Pop-up cafe.

A Few Birds

We had a mini bird race for teams from our Blashford Lakes Project partners today, which meant that I got to have a good look around the reserve and see a few birds as well. Generally it was a quite day with rather little sign of migration despite the season.

Over Ibsley Water there were several hundred hirundines, predominantly house martin but including sand martin and swallow. The only wader was common sandpiper, but the bushes between the lakes held some small birds including chiffchaff, willow warbler, blackcap and a single spotted flycatcher, mostly accompanying flocks of long-tailed tit.

Walter our regular great white egret was back in his regular spot outside Ivy North hide after going absent for a few days, his recent companion has not been seen for several days. An adult hobby hunting over the trees at the same spot was also nice to see and a peregrine was reported there as well.

Numbers of wildfowl have been high for the time of year and I took the opportunity to get a new count of the coot on Ibsley Water and found 794, a really high count for the first half of September.

 

Moths and Birds and no Snowberry

Despite the autumnal weather the moth trap continues to catch a reasonable range of species, Friday’s catch included two of the bigger wainscots, the large wainscot,

large wainscot

and the bulrush wainscot.

bulrush wainscot

Neither of them particularly colourful species, unlike the frosted orange.

frosted orange

I know I have already posted this species a few times, but they are very fine and this one was very fresh. Autumn moths tend to be either bright yellow, orange or very dull indeed and the deep brown dart is certainly at the dull end, at least in terms of colour.

deep brown dart

Despite the extremely dull weather today there were some birds to see, the ruff remains on Ibsley Water and there were also 2 green sandpiper and a common sandpiper there too. A sign of the changing season is the slowly increasing number of wigeon, I saw at least 25 today, but there were also something over 75 hirundines, mostly swallow but also a number of house martin and even a few sand martin.

Recently the Goosander hide has been attracting  allot of photographers trying to get shots of a fairly cooperative kingfisher. It also seems to be good for quiet a few other species too. I was especially pleased to see  the trees that we leaned into the lake there being well used as perches by a range of species, including today, Walter, our returning great white egret.

Walter, our returning great white egret, you can just make out some of his rings.

The perches near the Goosander hide are being used by lots of birds, the rails I put up  a few years ago were very popular with cormorant today.

A “drying-off” of cormorant.

Large numbers of cormorant have been mass fishing in Ibsley Water recently, something they only do when there are very large shoals of fish, of just the right size, on offer. This year there seem to be large numbers of perch and rudd to be caught, to judge from the many pictures we have been sent of cormorant with fish recently.

These same rails are also popular with gulls and I saw three different yellow-legged gull on there this afternoon, including this first winter bird.

Yellow-egged gull, in first winter plumage (or if you prefer 1st cy)

It was the first Sunday of the month and despite unpromising weather four volunteers turned out for a task this morning. For several years I have been meaning to get around to removing a patch of snowberry near the Ivy North hide, it has not spread very far but is a garden plant that really should not be in a semi-natural woodland. Finally today we got rid of it, or at least of as much of it as we could dig up, next spring we will see how much we missed!

I will end with a sure sign of autumn, a fungus, the reserve has  a lot of fungi just now, I really struggle to identify them, but I think I know what this is, until someone puts me right, a fly agaric – this one complete with flies.

fungus gnat agaric

 

Blashford Bird Trail 2017

Well I told Tracy I’d blog the Bird Trail and as she told everyone in her last post that I would be I suppose I really should!

The Bird Trail is a joint event run by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust with the Hampshire Ornithological Society with the express intent of engaging groups of children and young people in wildlife and, of course, in bird watching in particular.

The 2017 Bird Trail was another great success and it would not have been so without the support of many people and organisations: first off I will thank all of the Hampshire Ornithological Society and HIWWT volunteers who helped out on the day and ensured that it was the great success it was! Volunteers led on a multitude of tasks from photographing the event, to supervising the road crossings or administering the group registration and totaling up the bird lists, to leading activities including owl pellet dissection, pond dipping and river dipping to name but a few! Thank you!

We are also very grateful to Liberty’s Owl, Raptor and Reptile Centre, Waders for Real, Bird Aware Solent and the Natural History Museum for attending on the day with some fantastic displays, information and interactive activities as well as British Trust for Ornithology volunteers for their bird ringing demonstration – a definite highlight for many.

We had some fantastic prizes with thanks to sponsorship from Christchurch Harbour Ornithological Group, Hampshire Swifts, In Focus, Liberty’s Owl, Raptor and Reptile Centre, Nutbags, Pearsons and Birds of Poole Harbour – thank you!

Thank you to Chris Packham, President of HOS and long-term supporter of the Bird Trail since it’s very first inception many, many years ago, who once again somehow managed to find time in a very full calendar of filming and other commitments to support the event himself and gave a typically short but well made, pointed yet humorous talk on wildlife watching, why we should all do it and how we can all help it as well as awarding the prizes and spending time with the volunteers, young people and exhibitors participating in the activities. This year the focus of his talk, having only recently returned from there, was the on-going illegal slaughter of 100’s of 1000’s of songbirds in Cyprus for it’s restaurant trade…

And finally of course, thank you to the groups of children and young people themselves and particularly the group leaders and parent helpers who gave up their Sunday to bring them… although to be fair I think you had almost as much fun (as much fun?!) as the children did!

Guided, chaperoned and instructed by HOS volunteers our groups (this year including multiple teams from Ringwood and Fordingbridge Beaver Scouts, Blashford and Havant Wildlife Watch groups, Titchfield Haven Wildlife Explorers and our own Young Naturalists) set off at intervals on a set route around the nature reserve to see (or hear!) as many species of bird as they could. Before or after starting their bird watch groups also had the opportunity to participate in a raft of other activities including pond dipping, river dipping, a BTO bird ringing demonstration and owl pellet dissection as well as enjoy interactive displays laid on by our visiting project exhibitors.

The winning team – 3rd Ringwood Beavers (team 1) came top on the day with over 5o species of birds (their list has subsequently gone missing in action and I can’t remember the exact total!) and they won individual pairs of Opticron Vega binoculars (courtesy of In Focus) as well as individual tickets for each team member and an accompanying adult to join the Birds of Poole Harbour Christmas Birdwatching cruise.

Close behind, with 47 species, was our very own Young Naturalist group winning family tickets to Liberty’s Owl, Raptor and Reptile Centre, and in third place, with 42 species was Titchfield Haven Wildlife Explorers who won themselves a “Nutbags” sunflower heart filled bird feeder and a FSC guide to the Top 50 Garden Birds, courtesy of the Hampshire Swift Group.

All entrants were awarded with an embroidered “Bird Trail” camp blanket badge (sponsored by Christchurch Ornithological Society) and a certificate (printed by Pearsons) signed personally by Chris Packham himself.

Bird highlights? Goldcrest in the hand at the ringing demo, and peregrine and kingfisher sightings. Other highlights? Definitely the pond dipping and the owl pellet dissection!

Now just need to start thinking about Bird Trail 2018…?

The start… and getting used to our binoculars!

Bird watching…

Pond dipping…

Owl pellet dissection…

Activities and displays with our visiting exhibitors…

Bird ringing demonstration…

Adjudicating the final scores!

And the winners!

Goings on

This Sunday we are holding our annual Lymington and Keyhaven Nature Reserve Open Day. For details see: 2017 Keyhaven event flyer

It is a joint venture with the Hampshire County Council, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and the New Forest National Park to celebrate the wildlife of the marshes between Lymington and Keyhaven. There will be a range of local conservation groups present and a range of walks, bird ringing, a seashore search, birdwatching, activities, light refreshments and much more. If you have never been to the reserve or have but would like to find out more come along, all the details are in the link.

Talking of events I will also flag up that on the following Sunday, the 24th September we will be hosting the Bird Trail Event at Blashford. This is aimed at young birdwatchers and there will be a number of teams going around the reserve that day, so the hides will be very busy and I would suggest that regular visitors might like to give us a miss that day. The event is jointly organised between the Wildlife Trust and Hampshire Ornithological Society part of our goal of bringing on the next generation of wildlife enthusiasts. As well as using the hides the area around the Centre will be busy with other activities.