Comings and Goings

It finally seems as though the grey phalarope has left us, I am  surprised that it has not gone before now, the nights have been fine and apparently idea for flying. The wood sandpiper remains though and turns up fairly regularly in front of the Tern hide giving very good views. They are one of the most attractive of all waders and this one has proved very popular with our photographers.

wood sandpiper, juvenile in front of Tern hide this afternoon

The phalarope may have left but Ibsley Water was playing host to a new scarcity today, perhaps not entirely unexpected but still good to see, the drake ferruginous duck has returned. At least it seems safe to assume that it is the same bird that has been coming since October 2010. It usually arrives in late September and is often on Ibsley Water for a day or two before going to the, difficult to see, Kingfisher Lake. I have no idea why it does not go straight to Kingfisher Lake or why it stays there so determinedly once it does get there.

In other news today the, or perhaps a, bittern was photographed flying across Ivy Lake again, I assume the same as in early September but who knows. As I was talking to a contractor outside the Education Centre I thought I heard the call of a white-fronted goose, I discounted this as a mishearing but then saw a small long-winged goose fly over, so I am pretty sure it was actually a white-fronted goose, but where it had come from or where it was going in anybody’s guess.

The moth trap is still attracting a fair few species, although nothing out of the ordinary, today’s catch included: large wainscot, black rustic, white-point, lunar underwing, large yellow underwing, sallow, barred sallow, pink-barred sallow, brimstone, snout, straw dot and lesser treble-bar. A lot of autumn species are yellow, no doubt helping them to hide amongst autumn leaves.

yellow moths: brimstone, sallow, pink-barred sallow and barred sallow

I also managed to record a moth as I was locking the gate this evening, or rather the caterpillar of a moth, as there was a grey dagger larva on the main gate catch. The adult moths are difficult to identify with certainty as they are very similar to the dark dagger, however the caterpillars are quiet different.

grey dagger caterpillar

 

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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

 

A Few Sightings

The last few days have had a few good sightings around the reserve. On Saturday 3 otter were seen in the Ivy Silt Pond, a group of three was probably a female and her two off-spring, let’s hope they become regulars.

The great white egret has been seen on most days, including today, when it was briefly on Ibsley Water. Both yesterday and today a single curlew was also there. Other birds have included a wheatear on Sunday and a merlin today, which had go at catching one of the flock of meadow pipit currently frequenting the shore of Ibsley Water. However the undoubted star bird of the last few days was the yellow-browed warbler seen and photographed outside the Woodland hide today by John Hilton.

yellow-browed warbler at the Woodland hide, by John Hilton

These tiny warblers breed in Siberia and used to be scarce vagrants to Western Europe, however they have undergone a remarkable change of status in the last few years and we now more or less expect to get an arrival of them each autumn, especially on the east coast of England. This autumn’s arrival has been on a very large scale, on one day there were over 130 on the Yorkshire coast around Flamborough Head.

Interestingly these warblers are not the only Siberian birds that are arriving in far greater numbers these days, a whole variety of previously very rare visitors are turning up more and more often. These include species like pallid harrier, brown shrike, red-flanked bluetail, citrine wagtail and others, who knows maybe one day we will see one of these at Blashford too, (well I can dream!).

On a more down to earth note, the moth trap contained a good, if small, collection of autumn moths, including merveille du jour, red-line Quaker, large wainscot and chestnut.

chestnut

Locking up this evening it was noticeable that Ivy Lake has a good selection of wildfowl now and these included at least 139 wigeon, by far my largest count so far this autumn.