30 Days Wild – Day 10 – Damp(ish)

Most of my “Wildness” involved being indoors looking out, although it was not too bad at the beginning and end of the day. The office window at Blashford looks out over the picnic tables and the small pond used by education groups for pond-dipping. It was a movement on the pond-dipping boardwalk that attracted my attention as I was using the photocopier.

Roe deer eating hemlock water-dropwort

It seemed to be eating mainly the flowers, but the books will tell you that every part of the plant is highly poisonous. I have previously noticed that cattle seem very partial to eating this plant, apparently without obvious harm.

I ventured out at lunchtime, but only as far as the Tern Hide, but I was rewarded with an adult lapwing accompanied by a juvenile with several colour-rings. I do not know for sure yet, but I am pretty certain it is one ringed by the Waders for Real project in the Avon Valley. Given the poor success of our own birds this year I was just pleased to see a fledged juvenile.

colour-ringed juv lapwing

Although the juvenile was running around feeding well and could fly very well it was still being defended vigorously by the adult, which spent sometime dive-bombing a family party of Canada geese.

A rather damp adult lapwing, still watching over the youngster despite having left home.

Other birds around were two wigeon, a drake and a duck, but not together, a black swan, hundreds of swift, similar numbers of house martin (in both cases over 350). The highlight though was a marsh harrier, hunched down in the shelter of the vegetation on one of the islands, looking rather miserable.

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30 Days Wild – Day 28 – Beyond Nature Reserves

At Blashford Lakes it was volunteer task day and nine volunteers braved the heat to work on the reserve for the morning. We did try to keep out of sun as much as possible, doing a number of tasks, fixing the door to Tern hide, trimming the sight lines around the main entrance and making up 19 bat boxes. Our volunteer team are vital to the successful running of the reserve, there are many tasks that I would never get done at all working alone.

All this effort makes the reserve a haven for wildlife, which is as you would expect. However what makes Blashford Lakes so good for wildlife is location. It lies between the New Forest and the Avon Valley two areas that are very good for wildlife. More than that they are in active management for wildlife. The New Forest has many ongoing projects aimed at maintaining or improving habitats. Less well known is the work that goes on in the Avon Valley. There are large projects such as the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust’s Waders for Real and more local action taken by landowners such as the nearby Somerley Estate. The important thing here is that on our own we cannot achieve very much, doing work that meshes into a greater whole makes every part more robust and likely to succeed.

The lapwing that breed at Blashford form part of the same population that breed on Somerley Estate, the New Forest heaths and greater Avon Valley. Birds may do better in some habitats than others in different years so a variety of breeding sites is important for the population as a whole, each site supports the others.

To say that nature reserves are important for nature conservation may seem like an obvious statement, but their role needs to be understood. If nature lives only on reserves it will be lost. Reserves can act as hotspots of diversity, places of long-term management continuity and are good places to easily get people to see wildlife up close, but the survival of wildlife is dependent upon the wider environment. So enjoy visiting your local nature reserve but look to the management of the wider countryside to save wildlife in meaningful amounts and for future generations.

After an afternoon of paperwork, something that seems to take more and more time as I get older, I think because there is more of it rather than that I am slowing, but who knows, we had planned to go out to ring some more black-headed gull chicks. However it was too windy, or the wind was in the wrong direction, so we called it off until next week.

What’s in My Meadow Today?

Lots of plants in the meadow are going to seed now, some plants take a slightly different route though and one such is crow garlic, which produces bulbils rather than true seeds. These fall and develop into underground bulbs from which the plant grows. It is a common plant of road verges and rough grasslands and I have several in the meadow, although this is the first year I have had plants producing bulbils.

crow garlic bulbils

 

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!