Another busy day on the reserve with the yellow-browed warbler performing pretty well throughout the day and drawing a steady flow of admirers to its favoured area neat Ivy South hide. It was not the only warbler on show though, there were Cetti’s warbler at Ivy North hide and at the silt pond neat Ivy South hide. Chiffchaff have been particularly frequent this winter and today I saw them near Ivy South hide, on the approach to Goosander hide and near Lapwing hide.
In the brief bit of sunshine we enjoyed around midday I went to have a quick practice with the new camera, these are some of the results.
female chaffinch with scaly-leg
siskin, a male not really showing his best side.
Although finch numbers at the Woodland hide are not large, they are increasing with siskin leading the charge and also an occasional redpoll.
tufted duck drake
At dusk there were at least 187 cormorant roosting in the trees beside Ivy Lake, which I photographed earlier in the day when there was more light.
Ivy Lake from Ivy South hide with the very first few of the cormorant gathering to roost.
As Jim mentioned yesterday the car park nearest the Education Centre will be completely closed from tomorrow morning for at least the next week, this will mean no access along the track to the Centre, either for vehicles or pedestrians, you can still walk to the Centre using the footpath to the left of the track, always the safest route. The work is aimed at levelling the car park surface to reduce the large puddles that are sometimes an unwelcome feature.
Further works are in the pipeline, so please keep an eye on things here to keep up to date with events.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 