Arctic Terns

Bird News: Ibsley Water - c1000 sand martin, 4 dunlin, 1 green sandpiper, 5 arctic tern

Ivy Lake - 2 green sandpiper.

On both of the last two mornings the ringers have been in and caught a lot of birds. Yesterday 110 mixed sand and house martins were caught and this morning more martins and the fourth sparrowhawk of the year, an adult female pictured by Kevin Sayer.

The moth trap was quite well filled although the only new for the year moth was a centre-barred sallow, a real autumn species.

The birds of the day for me were the 5 arctic tern over the south-west corner of Ibsley Water, I don't see them that often and this group, all adults, consisted of birds in a range of plumage from full summer to almost full winter plumage. They are much more elegant in flight than common terns, a result of the different proportions of their wings, which are much longer in the primaries. The 4 dunlin were new and I could find no sign of the knot or ringed plovers, both of which had been around for some time.

Later we were working around the shore of Ivy Lake, opening up the views from the Ivy South hide where two hobbies went over, calling loudly. The other notable wildlife we saw were several water scorpions in the lake, I did try a picture but it was too dark.