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| Feeding Duties |
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| Over the reedbed...... |
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| .....and along the track |
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| Young Hares |
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| One of many Grass snakes |
Very windy on Saturday giving way to warmer and calmer weather on Sunday.
My
main aim this weekend was to catch up with the juvenile
Bearded Tits that had
been photographed on Monday. One of them had been seen on Friday and I was quite
hopeful. The strong wind meant that most birds on Saturday were keeping their
heads down but we did at least hear a couple of pings from the south western
corner of the reedbed. Given that we are fairly certain that they bred somewhere
on the moor this year it will be worth keeping ears and eyes open in a week or
so as they can produce more than one brood in a year. B.W.P. states incubation
takes between eleven and twelve days and the chicks fledge between twelve and
fourteen days. It is certainly worth paying particular attention when walking
along the path between the bridleway and the first screen.
Elsewhere
Snipe
are drumming over Greenaways and Big Otmoor and RSPB staff have found a number
of nests. The two scrapes alongside the bridleway had at least nine
Lapwing
chicks of several different sizes feeding around the margins and also a family
of
Redshanks including four chicks. The parent birds always alert to the threat
of aerial predation and quick to challenge
Kites and
Crows. A female
Pochard was
in the ditch alongside the bridleway with two ducklings in tow and a pair of
Mute Swans have four cygnets. The
Common Terns on the raft out from the site of
the second screen are clearly breeding, on Sunday morning the parents changed
over brooding duties and were clearly taking pains to cover their eggs and turn
them. The
Grey Herons in front of the hide look just about ready to leave the
nest as it is getting to be a very tight fit for three.
Grass snakes and
Common Lizards were again visible on the pollarded willows in the carpark field
beside the track. There were two lizards there together in the sunshine on
Sunday.
As we pass the summer solstice we should begin to get some returning
waders, neither
Common Sand nor
Green Sand have been recorded on the moor so far
this year, we usually have quite a passage of Green Sands as we move into July
and I look forward to seeing them in the next couple of weeks.
Latest News: Joe Harris reserve warden has found the first
Green Sand of the year on Ashgrave today: Tuesday 18th June
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| Grass snake about to shed its skin |
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| Stripy Beetle sp.......All Pics this week (c) Bark |
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