Sticks and Stones May Ruin My Pictures

When I opened the Tern this morning I looked across Ibsley Water and in a group of about 40 sand martin was my first swallow of the year. On the shore belowthe hide a pipit caught my eye, yesterday there were reports of both water pipit and a possible Scandinavian rock pipit. This bird was a water pipit, almost moulted into breeding plumage. I got a picture of it, but as so often, there was a bit of vegetation in the way.

It was a busy morning with two groups visiting and a willow weaving class at the Centre. After getting everything going I returned to the Tern hide and there out on the water was a fine female scaup, not a duck we get at Blashford very often.

Out near the western shore the black-necked grebe was still in much the same place as it has been for a good while now, although it is rapidly moulting into breeding plumage now. On the shore near the hide was a very smart male lapwing, they are fabulous birds and I never tire of them.

The pair of redshank were also there again and a got another picture of the female.

The lesser spotted woodpecker was seen again yesterday and I had a third hand report of it today. With so many people looking for it I though I would see if I could find it, I failed by by the path near the alder carr came across a clump of fungi, I am not sure what they are, they look reminiscent of the shaggy ink caps so common in autumn, the common ink cap is a spring species, but I though it had smooth caps and this fungus also seemed to be growing out of a log rather than the ground.

The alder trees themselves are host to a fungus that causes black tar-like spots to form on the bark. The flow of nutrients from the roots becomes blocked and the trees die. This is probably a good thing for woodpeckers but a real problem for us. When the trees are within falling distance of the paths we have to fell the trees, often not an easy task.

The water pipit picture had a piece of plant in the foreground, in the case of that picture it just blurred the shot, but as every digi-scoper will knows what usually happens is the auto focus helpfully decides to focus on the twig or bit of grass rather than the chosen subject. Recently I have been trying different settings to overcome this and today tried taking the heron below in a classic situation that usually fools the auto focus and it seemed to work. I used the macro, manual focus and set it to infinity. I don't think the result is a sharp as it could be, but at least it is focused on the bird rather than the reeds in front.

There was also a moorhen, looking splendid in the sunshine, although they are quite common at Blashford they are not seen all that easily and I don't think I have posted a picture of one on the blog before.Other than the usual flocks of brambling I saw rather little else today, the mealy redpoll reported yesterday did not show, despite a good look by several people. There were several chiffchaff around and a willow warbler was reported from the shore of Ellingham Lake.

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.