I spent a warm morning cutting willows and rushes along the eastern shore of Ibsley Water between the Goosander and Lapwing hides. The idea is to improve the access for grazing wildfowl this winter and possibly the habitat for breeding Lapwing next spring. Before I set out along the shore I noticed a number of
cormorant fishing in a tight group outside the Goosander hide, there were at least fifty birds and they were catching smallish silver fish, probably
roach.
Whilst cutting the shore I saw a number of
Roesell's bush-cricket and
long-winged conehead, I managed a picture of just the latter species, a female with a long sword-like ovipositor.
After three hours cutting the vibrations of the mower got too much and I returned for lunch to the Centre. Just as we started to eat a wasp landed on the table carrying a hoverfly, I assume to stock a larder for its larvae. It is remarkable that it could fly when carrying this prey which is at least as large as it is.
During the day news arrived of the hatching of the first of the
great crested grebe eggs on the nest outside the Ivy South hide. When I went to lock up I managed to get a few shots of the chick being fed feathers by the adults, grebes all eat feathers and it seems that the first meal the chick gets is an assortment of feathers. The bird on the water plucked a feather and passed it to the one on the nest, I assume the female, passed it on to the chick.
When the adult on the nest wanted to get off it just stood up and the chick just rolled off onto the nest, the other adult then took over nest duty.
The
osprey was again seen today, although it did not perform as well as over the last couple of days. Once again the Goosander hide provided a good variety of small birds with a
redstart,
reed warbler, garden warbler and a late
swift seen early on and 2
spotted flycatcher later. There were good numbers of
willow warbler and
chiffchaff about once again. It was also a day for wagtails with two
yellow wagtail, 20+
pied wagtail and at least 4
grey wagtail. I also finally managed to prove that there really are 15
Egyptian geese as I suspected the other day, as all of them were grazing together on the west shore of Ibsley Water.
Whilst cutting the shore I saw a number of Roesell's bush-cricket and long-winged conehead, I managed a picture of just the latter species, a female with a long sword-like ovipositor.
After three hours cutting the vibrations of the mower got too much and I returned for lunch to the Centre. Just as we started to eat a wasp landed on the table carrying a hoverfly, I assume to stock a larder for its larvae. It is remarkable that it could fly when carrying this prey which is at least as large as it is.
During the day news arrived of the hatching of the first of the great crested grebe eggs on the nest outside the Ivy South hide. When I went to lock up I managed to get a few shots of the chick being fed feathers by the adults, grebes all eat feathers and it seems that the first meal the chick gets is an assortment of feathers. The bird on the water plucked a feather and passed it to the one on the nest, I assume the female, passed it on to the chick.
When the adult on the nest wanted to get off it just stood up and the chick just rolled off onto the nest, the other adult then took over nest duty.
The osprey was again seen today, although it did not perform as well as over the last couple of days. Once again the Goosander hide provided a good variety of small birds with a redstart, reed warbler, garden warbler and a late swift seen early on and 2 spotted flycatcher later. There were good numbers of willow warbler and chiffchaff about once again. It was also a day for wagtails with two yellow wagtail, 20+ pied wagtail and at least 4 grey wagtail. I also finally managed to prove that there really are 15 Egyptian geese as I suspected the other day, as all of them were grazing together on the west shore of Ibsley Water.
No comments:
Post a Comment