Empty Cups and Swallows Go West

Bird News: Ibsley Water - little stint 1, dunlin 1, black-necked grebe 1, swallow 20+ with most moving west, goosander 3 redheads .

Tied up doing tedious stuff for most of the day so hardly got out on the reserve. Near the Centre I was struck by the number of acorns littering the ground, this leaves lots of empty acorn cups on the trees, each like a tiny parabolic reflector.

The sun came out in the afternoon and this tempted a few dragonflies out. I was alerted to the southern hawker below by our regular bird photographers and got a passable shot of it.

The little stint on Ibsley Water today was a bit of a surprise and the first this autumn and probably the last too. Later in the day it was joined by a dunlin. First thing I arrived just in time to see 3 redhead goosander flying off to the north. The black-necked grebe was again on the northern part of the lake all day. Apart form a few meadow pipit flying over the only obvious migrants were a slow but possibly steady passage of swallows,more or less westwards into the wind. I got a count of 87 lapwing on Ibsley Water today, they seem to like the newly lowered and widened bank on the western shore.

A few Birds and a Stink Horn

I could not see Iblsey Water when I opened up the Tern hide so there was nothing to report. A little later, when the fog had lifted I could just make out a juvenile common tern, a dunlin and a ringed plover around the islands. The shore near the hide had a fair few pied wagtail, perhaps 20 with similar numbers of meadow pipit and at least one grey wagtail.

It turned out the great white egret was seen from the Goosander hide for a good part of the morning. I also heard that there have been a couple of sightings of lesser spotted woodpecker from there recently, on one occasion a pair of birds. Other recent reports have included 9 goosander and 2 little ringed plover, the last very late for Blashford.

The volunteers were working clearing the willows that have invaded the shore of Ivy Lake, they also collected plants for planting up the vegetated rafts. We have chosen to use mostly reed sweet grass, as this seems to be the species with the greatest phosphate demand and it is hoped the rafts will help in the reduction of levels of this nutrient in the lake.

At this point there was to have been a picture of an especially fine and smelly stink horn fungus complete with a host of flies. We found it as we walked back form the volunteer task, I was going to go back and get a picture but never made it.

At the end of the day a quick look at Ibsley Water, this time in sunshine and I saw a little stint, no doubt yesterday's bird and 3 dunlin. There were still fair numbers of all three common hirundines today and several chiffchaff are still around in the willows.

A Stint on Ibsley Water

Mist, followed by drizzle soon turning to rain, which lasted all day. It is rare for whole day to be wet, but today managed it.

Looking through the mist from the Tern hide at the start of the day I saw 7 dunlin and a ringed plover, almost what was there yesterday but not quite, were these mostly the same birds or an entirely different group? There were also 13 Egyptian geese, a juvenile common tern, the great white egret, 2 little egret, a sparrowhawk, 30 wigeon and 4 pintail. These were the first pintail I have seen on the lake this season.

At Ivy North a calling water rail was the only thing of note. On the silt pond by the path to the Ivy South hide there was a good selection of wildfowl including wigeon, gadwall, teal and mallard. From the Ivy South hide 63 tufted duck were more than recently and there were also 2 drake pochard.

Later in the day a little stint had joined the dunlin on Ibsley Water, the first of the year and a useful extra bird for our BTO Challenge total.

The greatest sighting of the day was made in the lobby of the Centre, I was walking between the offices when I glanced at the big screen, which was relaying pictures form the pond, when I saw a grass snake, evidently using the camera as a route out of the pond so the whole length of the body passed up the screen, like some huge monster, an amazing sight.

Perhaps surprisingly as I locked up the Ivy North hide, in the continuing rain, there was a migrant hawker dragonfly hunting flies outside the hide.