Wagtails: White and Black and White

A much better day today, although I was feeling a bit rough with a cold, so I was glad of the sunshine. The ringers were in this morning, birds were rather few but they did catch a Treecreeper (below) and three Long-tailed Tit. The last may well be a pair and a helper as they are one of the species that often have them. Although most of the research on nest helpers was done in exotic tropical locations, often by people from this country, they could have done the work in their own gardens or the institute car park. Of course given the choice I would also have taken the tropical route, but it shows that our own birds are every bit as interesting as any others and I have not even got onto the private life of the Dunnock.
Some work did get done today, but mostly this was thanks to the volunteers, hides were spring cleaned and various odd jobs dealt with. Next week we might tackle the tern rafts, weather permitting.

From the Tern hide there were once again hundreds of hirundines over Ibsley Water and on the banks a female Wheatear and some Pied Wagtail, including at least one male White Wagtail. The White Wagtails we get are probably en route for Iceland and many of the Pieds for N. England and Scotland.

White Wagtails have grey backs and more discrete black bibs, the grey is paler than a female Pied Wagtail, they also have grey rumps, although this is hard to see as the wings usually cover it .

The sunshine did bring out some Peacock butterflies and at least 2 Adders on the path to the Lapwing hide.

A Chill Wind

Winter returned, or at least the chill wind and driving rain made it feel wintry, although the hundreds of Swallows and Martins indicated otherwise. By the end of the day there were something like 200 Swallow, 350 Sand Martin and at least 10 House Martin, mostly over Ibsley Water. There were 2 Little Gulls, but one was certainly different from yesterday as it was an adult. There was no sign of the Common Tern or the Black-necked Grebes today.

Despite the conditions the Little Ringed Plovers continue to plan for nesting, the male calling and making scrapes for the female to inspect. At lunchtime they were doing this very close to the hide and I got a couple of pictures.
Above the male calling, the throat expanded and below making a scrape.

Other birds today included a Wheatear, the first if the year, a Peregrine and about 50 Black-tailed Godwit.

Blashford is entered into the BTO - EDF Energy Birds Business Challenge. One element is to record as many species as possible on the site during the year. By the end of the first quarter we

have recorded 117 species, 97 in January, 94 in February and 106 in March. It is not a challenge we will win as one or two of the other sites will always attract more birds than Blashford, Rutland Water is usually a shoe-in for top spot, but we should give one or two of the next level of sites a run for their money.

Arrivals, arrivals

A real day of arrivals, cold and wet but conditions that favoured birds coming in from the south. New in today was a Common Sandpiper and 2 Little Gulls, both of them first year birds one pictured (badly) below. It has moulted some of the tail feathers so there are only black ends showing on the outers.
Also new and really early for Blashford was a Common Tern, I got a bad picture of this too and I share it below.

At the start of the day there were perhaps 50 Sand Martins and 3 Swallows, by the end there were 300 or more Sand Martins and at least 100 Swallows. There was also a single House Martin and I often don't see one of those in March. There 3 Black-necked Grebe again, although the fourth might have actually gone as nobody saw more than three all day.

Around the Woodland and Centre some 20 Brambling, including some brilliant males,although I could only get a picture of a female.

There are also still lots of Greenfinches coming to the feeders, the side view of the head shows just how massive the bill is.

There were also at least 7 Blackcap today and a Willow Warbler, so the arrivals included nocturnal migrants as well.

The Little Ringed Plovers are getting settled, despite looking as though they will be close to the hide, the nest site may once again have a strategically placed twig, just for the photographers! We actually did do a lot of clearing and weeding and most of the area is clear, they obviously like to be close to a stick.

The Differently Spotted Newt

I was working in the lobby at Blashford for a time today, these days with the screen and "pondcam" this in no way prohibits seeing wildlife. The on-screen highlights were a Water Stick Insect, actually a type of aquatic bug and lots of newts, including at least one male Palmate Newt. These differ from the Smooth Newts in having only a very slight crest and more discrete spotting, the tail often with two neat rows of spots and naturally they have palmations. Actually it is only the hind feet that are palmate, or webbed, unlike the paddle-like toes of the Smooth Newt. I will try to capture an image or a video clip, when I have understood how to work the technology.

Today also saw the first Blackcap of the year, a male singing beside the entrance track to the Centre but I could not find the Willow Warbler reported yesterday. On Ibsley Water the Little Ringed and Ringed Plover were still there as were two Black-necked Grebe. A Lapwing is now sitting tight on the shingle to the east of the Tern hide and up to three more pairs are looking like they are settling in nearby. Other birds included at least one Swallow, several Sand Martins digging nest holes and a good number of singing Chiffchaffs.

Plovers, Large and Small

I spent a fair bit of the day moving willow brash and making dead hedges today, but at lunchtime I went to the Tern hide. A pair of Little Ringed Plovers are getting really settled just in front of the hide. The male is ringed and is probably the one that nested there last year, although I will have to check the ring details to be sure. They do get remarkably close to the hide and I managed to get this shot of the female, looking a little unhappy just after a shower.

As well as the pair of Little Ringed Plovers there was also a very smart male Ringed Plover and he seemed equally willing to come close to the hide. I suspect it may also be looking at the area as a potential nest site, although less commonly than the smaller species, they do nest on the reserve from time to time.
The Plovers were not the only waders on Ibsley water today, there was a Common Snipe in front of the hide as well. It was feeding in a slightly unusual way, squatting on its haunches it was probing with bill at a very shallow angle under the stones of the shore periodically bobbing almost like a Jack Snipe.

There was also a Green Sandpiper, a flock of 200 Black-tailed Godwit as well as the usual Oystercatcher, Redshank and Lapwing. More excitingly, at least for me as it was my reserve "first", was a Marsh Harrier which flew south to the east of the hide.

Around the Centre and Woodland there are still some Brambling, Lesser Redpoll and several singing Chiffchaff, the birds at the feeders were being frequently harassed by a Sparrowhawk. At the end of the day a pair of Mallard were feeding outside the Woodland hide, not somewhere I have seen any before.

The most interesting other report was of Bittern seen from the Goosander hide, although the Ivy North bird was not reported today I still think these are two different birds.

Top floor dwellings going fast

Following yesterday's report of Sand Martins already visiting nest holes in the artificial bank by the Goosander hide, I decided to make a quick visit there first thing this morning. As soon as I arrived I saw about 20 Sand Martin visiting the bank just to the left of the hide where they were favouring the top row of holes.

Perhaps surprisingly, considering the weather that was to follow later, there was actually a spell of sunshine, better still it coincided with a group of Goosander coming close to the hide allowing a few pictures.

It was always difficult to get them in focus as they never stopped swimming about and this makes digi-scoping a touch tricky. The group below are not all in focus, but they were never going to be, although I got lucky with the drake.

Also from this hide I saw the 4 Black-necked Grebe and about 40 Black-tailed Godwit.

At the Tern hide a Lapwing seems to have settled on a nest site to the east of the hide and a pair of Little Ringed Plover are nest scraping very close to the hide, so perhaps they will nest by the there again. Other waders prospecting include at least two pairs of Redshank and two pairs of Oystercatcher. Although there have been good numbers of Black-headed Gull about they show no great sign of settling, I could do with them doing so soon as I don't want to put the tern rafts out until the gulls are committed to their nest sites.

At the Centre at least 15 Brambling, some of the males looking very fine indeed are certainly worth a second, or third, look. The Bittern at the Ivy North hide was seen again this afternoon after not showing at all yesterday.

As it was Thursday it was volunteer day. Today's tasks included putting in three new bench seats, making some new tern chick shelters and removing more of the garden daffodils that grow in the woodland near the patches of wild ones. We got the timing of the task just right, within five minutes of the end it was like an open-air power shower, in the end we had 22mm of rain today.

The screen in the Centre lobby recorded another "tick" today with an excellent Water Stick Insect which stalked across the top left of the view. Meanwhile the newts continue to cruise about in numbers looking strangely prehistoric. The images can be viewed on the web at
mms://wms.carnyxlive.co.uk/blashford (yes I know it should be a link, but I could not get it to work so you will have to key it in yourself - sorry).

After my early success at the Goosander hide I thought I would have another look there at the end of the day as I had more time than usual this evening. Once again there were Goosanders, this time 27 birds including eight adult drakes.

Chiffs, Diggers and Newts

Spent most of the day in a meeting off site today so almost no time at Blashford, but enough to know that there had been a considerable arrival of Chiffchaff overnight, there were several singing at various places. I was at the Goosander repairing a section of fence, there were a few Sand Martin about and people in the hide told me that some had been excavating the nest tunnels in the newly constructed section of bank. I seems extraordinarily early in the season for them to already be digging nest tunnels.

As I locked up a quick look from the Tern hide allowed confirmation that the 4 Black-necked Grebe are still present and that there were about 60 Black-tailed Godwit on the island at the north end of the lake.

The screen in the lobby at the Centre has been very good value in the last few days, with displaying Smooth Newts, water beetles, water boatmen, caddis larvae, dragonfly larvae and all kinds of other underwater life. It really is remarkable how much is going on and the water temperature must still be quite low, goodness knows what it will be like when it warms up.