Return of the grey ghost

Well the weather is certainly if nothing up and down at the moment with rain, then frost and then rain again, not that we don't need some rain and frost though as I'll talk about a bit later. 

Firstly though its good to report the appearance of our first adult male hen harrier back on the reserve who can occasionally be seen along with the ring tail. First seen last Friday he's been at times showing pretty well with sightings on Monday all through the afternoon and certainly yesterday in the nice weather. So with also plenty of marsh harriers coming in to roost alongside and then merlin, peregrine, buzzard, and barn owl the raptor spectacle should just get better and better towards the new year. (we do have a bird of prey weekend this weekend too btw if you fancy a change from the Christmas shopping)

Unfortunately though no photo's of the male hen harrier as yet particularly as I've been busy in meetings or with the weather being dull in the morning its difficult to get any nice snaps

Other highlights over the last few days on the bird front have been the ever present water pipits, still a few ruff and black-tailed godwits mixed in with the lapwing, redshank and snipe.

Snipe on Xerox in the morning gloom

Curlew are regularly flying too and fro their roosting areas with occasional birds on the grazing marsh

This one is from last week

With a bit more of the wet stuff the lagoons and grazing marsh are at last starting to look like they should in the winter although we are still over 30cm down on target water levels across the site. But higher water levels are opening up feeding opportunities for wigeon, teal, gadwall and shoveler.

The willows are at last shedding their leaves while the hawthorns are still attracting good numbers of fieldfares and redwings while its been good to see the pair of bullfinch again picking of the developing buds. A big surprise this morning wasn't a bird along the hedge line but a hawthorn flower in bloom! 

A few cettis warblers still singing, bearded tits calling and water rails squealing, a single siskin this morning was notable as was a brambling on the feeder at the weekend.

Over the last few days what has been good to see has been the revival of a few early winter fungi around site, with it being so dry its been another difficult autumn for many of the sites fungi that have decided to stay hidden away. 

What has been notable is how the Jelly ear has suffered along with its host plant the elder in the dry conditions, both have suffered and up until today the jelly ear has looked sad and broken, but good to see at least some re-hydrating today and looking as though they have a chance of recovering some of their vigor. 

Jelly ear on Elder, you can see how affected it is but recovering a bit although not much long term hope for the Elder I think

One of the dung loving dungheads out on Ousefleet

The good old red-leg toughshank always appears in the winter

A quick walk through Horseshoe meadow looking at condition was enlightening with the first fungi I've seen growing, although not much to look at the presence of two grassland species is of some significance. What it does mean is that the meadow is really starting to develop and change from arable towards a grassland with a more stable nutrient cycle. This really can have benefits for some species of flowers that we really want to encourage to grow - orchids! Most orchids need different fungi on which to extract nutrients for their survival so to at least see the development of a fungal community from the once quite sterile arable soil is a promising sign, Especially when we have spread some green-winged and pyramidal orchid dust (seed) over the last couple of years, lets hope this positive sign means that next year we will start to see our first beautiful orchid display in what is fast becoming a gem of a little meadow. (I added up at last week that we now have 50 species of traditional meadow plant spread across the meadow, most in good numbers!) 

Maybe not much to look at (and not great photo's as its was gloomy!) but these little chaps are a real sign of ecological progress!

And how about some of these in the meadow - btw I recently found out green-winged orchids are particularly susceptible to being poisoned and killed by artificial fertilizer, so even if a field hasn't been blanket sprayed with herbicide you could still loose your orchids........

Anyway just because the blog has been a bit short on photo's this week I just thought I'd just put up a few photo's of a short-eared owl that perched up in front from the weekend, the bird was down at Kilnsea wetlands at Spurn point and which after flying over a small flock of skylark in front of the hide treated us to some amazing views of this lovely day flying owl. Ain't birds just amazing!

Hopefully it will as the orchid above brightens a dull old day. Click to enlarge to see the detail

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