 |
| Hobby |
 |
| the same |
 |
| Turtle Dove by pumphouse |
 |
| Whitethroat |
 |
| Spring beauty.......... |
 |
| ........ and its antithesis. All above pics (c) Bark |
June on the reserve would have got off to the best possible start with excellent
weather and interesting things to see, but for one persons greed and ignorance.
Some time between dusk on Saturday and dawn on Sunday some selfish idiot decided
to dump a tipper truck load of building rubble in the carpark in two heaps. The
largest heap occupied at least two cars worth of space, which gives some idea of
the size of it. We have looked carefully through the spoil and found that it had
come from a house in Marston that is being worked on. Interestingly the pile
also contained some flyers for a rubbish collection service. We will pass this
information on to the appropriate authorities. It will of course cost the RSPB
both time and money to dispose of this material properly, something that the
perpetrator was also paid to do. The RSPB’s money and volunteers time are better
spent on conservation than cleaning up after irresponsible parasites. With my
rant over I can relate all the positive things that we have seen this
weekend.
Last week we had a brief visit from a passage
Osprey which
appeared to be hunting across the waterbodies on the reserve this was our one
hundred and fortieth species for the year. The
Bearded Tit found last weekend is
still present but is elusive and moving along the reedy margins around
Greenaways and out into the reedbed.
Hobbies entertained and thrilled many of
the visitors this weekend with eleven being present on Saturday midday and
similar numbers on Sunday.
Turtle Doves were also very popular with birders but
really only showed first thing in the mornings around the pumphouse and the
pollarded oaks along the bridleway.
Cuckoos too were present but we have yet to
hear a female calling with the distinctive “bubbling” call. There were two
Marsh
Harriers over the reedbed and Greenaways on Sunday. The large female that has
been present for several weeks was joined by another smaller bird which may be a
juvenile male. There were four
Curlew out on Greenaways and they were mobbing
the
Harriers as they came over. A drake
Garganey was seen on the first lagoon on
both days of the weekend and a pair were found on Ashgrave last week. The
sunshine encouraged birds to sing and display and many migrant warblers are
still collecting nesting material. It also brought out reptiles to bask. In
addition to
Grass Snakes there were at least two different
Common Lizards on
pollarded willow stumps in the car park field beside the track. (thanks to the
eagle eyed Pete Roby)
On Saturday a
Club-tailed Dragonfly was
photographed along the Roman Road, as far as I am aware this is the first record
of this species on Otmoor. There were numerous
Four-spotted Chasers and regular
sightings of
Hairy Dragonflies. Many other insect species could be found along
the Roman Road including beetles, hornets, butterflies and some fearsome looking
hairy caterpillars.
With news from Portland Observatory of a massive fall
of
Spotted Flycatchers on Friday, it will be worth keeping an eye open for this
increasingly scarce visitor in the coming week.
Bug supplement:
 |
Common Lizard
|
 |
| Brimstone |
 |
Longhorn Beetles
|
 |
Four spotted Chaser above pics (c) Bark
|
 |
Drinker Moth Caterpillar (c) Badger
|
 |
Newtlet or eft (c) Badger
|
 |
Club Tailed Dragonfly (c) Mike Flemming
|
No comments:
Post a Comment