A day of two halves a fine, sunny start, warm and calm. From the Tern hide early on pretty much all the birds were on the southern part of the lake nearest to the hide. They were a fairly undistinguished mob of geese and gulls, but did include the duck pintail and as it came close to the hide I had another go at freestyle digi-scoping and the result was not at all bad.
The birds may have been close, but on the bank way up on the north-west of the lake I saw a group of four large fox cubs, they must have been some 700m away, so the picture is not that bad, all in all.
Just outside the Ivy South hide an adult great crested grebe was sitting close to one of the chicks and I had a go at digi-binning. Actually this was rather a poignant shot, possibly the last time that they were together like this. At the end of the day the adults were together and when one of the chicks came over it got chased and pecked hard several times, clearly it is time for them to fend for themselves.
I had occasion to do a more or less full circuit of the reserve this morning, on the way the full horror of the Crassula issue in the south-east corner of Blashford Lake was more than evident. Luckily it doe snot spread beyond the sheltered corner, but it would be good to have something I could do about it. There are new possibilities being trialed and so maybe next year there will be something to try. 
Rather better was the realisation that a pair of lapwing had nested successfully on Rockford Lake, although the pair of Egyptian geese with three goslings there were less welcome.
Just outside the Ivy South hide an adult great crested grebe was sitting close to one of the chicks and I had a go at digi-binning. Actually this was rather a poignant shot, possibly the last time that they were together like this. At the end of the day the adults were together and when one of the chicks came over it got chased and pecked hard several times, clearly it is time for them to fend for themselves.
I had occasion to do a more or less full circuit of the reserve this morning, on the way the full horror of the Crassula issue in the south-east corner of Blashford Lake was more than evident. Luckily it doe snot spread beyond the sheltered corner, but it would be good to have something I could do about it. There are new possibilities being trialed and so maybe next year there will be something to try. 
Rather better was the realisation that a pair of lapwing had nested successfully on Rockford Lake, although the pair of Egyptian geese with three goslings there were less welcome.
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