Saturday and Sunday 25th and 26th May

Reed warbler (c) JR

A fine weekend on the whole, with days that started cool but by lunchtime you realised that you really hadn’t needed the extra layer and regretted it!

There was a lot to see but if anything, the moor was a little quieter than last week as birds were setting about nest building and raising young.

Juvenile Goldfinch and Long-tailed Tit (c) Bark

Already there are many newly fledged youngsters to see, offspring of our resident birds, including at least four or five different family parties of Long-tailed Tits and a brood of young Goldfinches in the car park field. A Grasshopper Warbler has started reeling again in Morleys, although it is very difficult for my hearing to discern, unless I am very close to it.

GWE (c) Bark

A Great White Egret is still on and around the reserve. On Saturday it flew across the southern lagoon and showed well from the first screen before flushing up right in front of us as we made our way to the second screen. As it flew away from us the extreme kink in its neck was very obvious.

GWE flies onto Big Otmoor (c) JR

Later as we were scanning across Big Otmoor it, or another bird, flew into the middle of the field and started to hunt along the ditches and once again the extreme “S” shape of its neck was unlike any of the other heron species we are familiar with. A Little Egret was feeding out on Ashgrave and it was good to have the chance to compare the two. The difference in shape and flight dynamics, even when it is not always possible to get any sense of scale, is very distinctive.

Four ,Two and one Bitterns (c) Euan Urquart

Although we didn’t see any Bitterns ourselves this weekend, no less than five had been seen simultaneously on Friday. Four birds  were in the air together over the reedbed, whilst another was on the ground out in the middle of Greenaways in the area from which they have frequently been reported. One of them has a secondary feather missing from the centre of its left wing and shows a large gap. This will make it easily identifiable until its next moult.

Marsh Harrier food-pass (c) JR

On Saturday morning we watched a food pass between two of the Marsh Harriers. The aerial prowess involved in such a manoeuvre is remarkable and is superbly illustrated by JR’s pictures.

The battle between Kites and Lapwings goes on. (c) JR

On the northern lagoon the Tern raft is a very busy place. It is hard to be certain but there appear to be at least ten pairs using it. Birds were sitting, coming and going and sometimes mating. The raft itself has a tendency to swing on its anchors and as it has a bit of a list to one side. Sometimes it is easier to see the birds on it than at other times. Courtship involves males presenting their partners with food to strengthen the pair bond. We noticed a bird coming in that looked as though it was about to present its mate with some tangerine skin, but a quick look with the scope revealed that it was in fact a Goldfish!  His mate struggled to swallow it easily, but it went down in the end. It suggests that they might be travelling as far as Oddington, Charlton and Noke to hunt, despite the very healthy fish population in the ring ditches.

Curlew and Skylark (c) Bark

We circumnavigated  the moor on Sunday as the range was not being used. It is a wonderful walk and takes in a much quieter and less busy part of the reserve. It was lovely to walk across the MOD whilst being serenaded by Skylarks and hearing the calls of Curlews and drumming Snipe.

Small Copper, Common blue and Damselflies mating (c) Bark

Butterflies are on the wing and more dragonfly species are emerging. I stopped to photograph a Dandelion “clock” on Sunday and when I got the picture up on my computer screen noticed that there was some kind of small insect on it with the most enormous antennae, which illustrates just how much there is to see and how much we can miss, if we don’t look closely enough. (any help with insect id would be appreciated)

The closer we look the more we see (c) Bark