Things Moving On

The unseasonably warm weather has yet to produce any summer migrant birds at Blashford, although elsewhere in the country there have been multiple sightings of swallow, sand martin and house martin, a swallow has even reached Shetland! We do have lots of signs of spring though, the wild daffodil are coming out in numbers, especially near the Woodland Hide and the moth trap is turning up some species more typical of March than February.

oak beauty

twin-spotted Quaker

satellite

Things are also moving on with the various works on the reserve and are likely to pick up further next week. The new Centre pond is almost ready to receive water.

New pond under construction

Some things don’t seem so keen to move though, the bittern remains regularly seen outside Ivy North Hide, at times showing very well.

bittern fishing outside Ivy North Hide yesterday

The other notable heron species that had been seen regularly there, the great white egret does seem to have made the move though, with no sightings in the last few days. My last known sighting of “Walter” the colour-ringed egret was last Saturday, I am guessing he has returned to France for the summer.

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Arrivals and Sightings

A quick update on the last couple of days. Yesterday I was working with the volunteers near the Lapwing hide, on the way there I flushed two water pipit from the shore and later one was showing really well at Goosander hide. These birds like the exposed stony shore and the piles of washed up weed, so they should be very happy with things at present with the lake so low. They winter in small numbers in the UK, but breed in the Alps, a rather odd migration strategy on the face of it.

Colder weather has heralded the arrival of more winter wildfowl, in particular goldeneye, which first turned up last weekend and have risen in numbers daily since,  today I saw 14 birds, including four adult drakes. Goosander numbers have increased markedly too, and I counted 51 at roost yesterday. There are at least two great white egret still on the reserve and two marsh harrier were seen yesterday, with at least one again today.

The colder nights have significantly reduced the catches in the moth trap, but despite this the last two nights have produced “November” moths Epirrita spp. , grey shoulder-knot, yellow-line Quaker, brick, satellite and black rustic. 

A Day to Dance About

Bird News: Ibsley Water – red-breasted merganser 1, black-necked grebe 1, oystercatcher 3, black-tailed godwit 9, Mediterranean gull 2+, barnacle goose 5. Ivy Lake – bittern 2, smew 2. Centre – brambling 1.

I was doing a water bird count this morning and got off to a good start when I saw the female red-breasted merganser fly out of the roost on Ibsley Water with 5 goosander and fly north up  the valley, disappearing over Ibsley Church. At Ivy North hide a bittern was one view and I also saw 2 water rail. I then circled round to count Ellingham Lake, then to the eastern side of Ibsley Water. From the Lapwing hide I had good views, relatively, of the black-necked grebe.

black-necked grebe

Most of the wildfowl numbers have started dropping now as they begin to move off toward their breeding areas. One exception is the diving duck, pochard and tufted duck, numbers of the last especially have risen quite sharply. Many winter further south and especially west and stop off at Blashford en route back to the continent. Although I have not totalled everything yet it is clear that there were about 600 tufted duck, surely enough to have a chance fo a lesser scaup one day? Tufted duck do also breed at Blashford of course as do moorhens.

moorhen

Moorhens seem like birds that don’t go anywhere and a good few probably don’t, but some at least visit us from the near continent for the winter. Not every thing is leaving, some birds are coming back. Today I saw the pair of oystercatcher that have been around for a few days, but there was also another bird, so three-quarters of our breeding population are now back.

oystercatcher

The pair of oystercatcher were doing display flights for a short while and they were not the only birds displaying, I saw at least four pairs of great crested grebe doing so including the pair below, they did the full weed-dance, but they were quick and I was too slow, so the picture shows them just after they had dropped their beakfuls of weed.

great crested grebe pair

The mild night produced the best moth catch of the year so far with pale and small brindled beauties.

pale brindled beauty

New for the year were twin-spot Quaker and dotted chestnut.

dotted chestnut

There were also several chestnut and 3 satellite.

satellite

Having missed them when I was doing the main count I managed to end the day by catching up with the 2 smew on Ivy Lake, a day that starts with a bittern and ends with 2 smew can’t be bad.