Spider-scoping

Bird News: Ibsley Water - ruff 1 juvenile, dunlin 3, knot 1, ringed plover 1 juvenile, black tern 1 adult.

I was busy with meetings for the whole morning, but at lunchtime there was reason to get the telescope out. In fact Michelle even took a look, now you might wonder what we were looking at, it is clear Michelle is hardly looking far across Ibsley Water.

In fact the target was not a bird but and this is a first for me, a spider. There are few occasions when using a telescope to look at a spider would seem even slightly sensible, but this assuredly was one of them. I even got a passable digi-scoped picture of it. As it is a raft spider it does have the advantage of being large, but it must be one of very few British spiders that you would even use a telescope to observe.

One interesting thing that the picture shows is the strands of silk, forming an untidy web. Many of the sources I have looked up imply that these spiders only spin a web when they lay eggs and hunt without one. This web looks like a hunting aid though, so perhaps they use silk more often than is thought.

The Bird and Bees (and Moths)

Bird News: Ibsley Water - ruff 1 juvenile, dunlin 2, ringed plover 2 juveniles, yellow wagtail 1 or more calling near the Tern hide, wheatear 2 (1 an adult male)

Ivy Lake - green sandpiper 2, Cetti's warbler 1 singing.

The moth trap had rather few moths this morning, but then it was the first really autumnal morning, dawning misty after a calm and very cool night. The few moths that there were included several very fresh and fine specimens including a sallow.

There were several frosted orange, all very fresh.

Other moths included a single migrant rusty-dotted pearl, large and lesser yellow underwing, flounced rustic, square-spot rustic and 2 brindled green, my first of the year.

It was volunteer Thursday and we were cutting willows again on the shore of Ivy Lake, as we will be again tomorrow. Later in the day I was on the south shore of the lake and took a look at the vegetated rafts we set afloat in the spring, some of the me have done pretty well.

I had lunch in the Tern hide where I eventually saw the waders listed above. I also heard a yellow wagtail, the first of the autumn, but typically I could not see it. A very noticeable thing today was the almost complete absence of martins, perhaps fifty each and a few swallows, a big change from the thousands of recent days.

At the end of the day I had a car left in the car park as I locked up, I waited around and was just about to lock up when the owner returned. I did take a look at the sandy bank on the lichen heath as I waited and found loads of small bees going in and out of holes and mating in the evening sun. I think they are Colletes succinctus.

I'm not sure this one is accepting visitors.

Island Life

More cutting along the shores of Ibsley Water today, making things better for grazing wildfowl and breeding waders. As well as cutting the shore two of the volunteer team went out to the island to give it a trim. This island is sometimes used by the big flock of black-tailed godwit that use the Avon Valley in the winter. Sometimes this flock can be as large as 3500 birds, a sizable part of the Icelandic population. The pictures show the island just after work started.
and what it looked like by the end of the morning.

Since I spent much of the morning using a strimmer and the afternoon various other machinery, bird sightings were few. The ruff was still on the islands in Ibsley Water first thing in the morning and I flushed a green sandpiper as I was transporting equipment up the shore of the lake later. I could see no sign of the scaup today, but it could still be around as I did not have a very good look. At the end of the day 2 wheatear were of note, both on the long shingle spit to the east of the Tern hide.

A Ruff Day

Two days in one and two busy ones at that, which is why there was no post last night. On Wednesday the Testwood volunteer team were cutting the nettles and low willows off the western shore of Ibsley Water to make the are better for grazing wildfowl and next spring for breeding lapwing. Among the nettles there were a few giant puff-balls, well past their best now but still quite impressive.

Mothing over the last couple of nights has been quite good but without any of the rarities that I cannot help hoping for at this time of year. There have been a couple of merveille du jour, the usual few sallows and today a chestnut, which is another one of the species that emerges now then hibernates and flies again in the spring when it mates and the eggs are a laid.

The moths may have been unremarkable but there have been a number of interesting, if not rare, birds. On Wednesday a curlew sandpiper, a wheatear, the first redwing of the autumn and the continued stay of the black tern and great white egret made for a varied day. I got a shot of the wheatear in the low evening light at the end of the day.

I stayed late as I was going to give a talk in the evening which gave me the chance to watch the gull roost as it gathered. There were at least 8000 lesser black-backed gull, about 1000 herring gull, about 1800 black-headed gull. At one point I could see over a thousand large gull coming towards the roost from the west, which I found interesting as the main arrival is usually from the north. There were a few great black-backed gull, at least 6 common gull, at least 7 yellow-legged gull and the same second winter Caspian gull as I saw the day before.

Today was also busy with the volunteers in doing a variety of jobs, we also had two meeting on site today. Despite all the activity I did have a quick look from the Tern hide at lunchtime and I was pleased I did as I found two new species for the year and the BTO challenge. The first was a juvenile ruff, not that unusual, but I had more or less given up hope of seeing one on the reserve this year. The second was a scaup, a young drake, this was actually the first I have seen at Blashford and a species I would perhaps have expected sooner. I post this with a slight word of warning, the bird was along way off and it can be tricky to be certain that they are not hybrids. That said nothing about the bird looked wrong, size, shape of head and bill were all right so I am pretty confident it was the real thing.