There's a whole lot of nesting going on

There are birds everywhere: lots rearing chicks, some already fledged, and some parents already sitting on their second clutch of eggs.

We were delighted to see a brood of four little grebes here this week, the first here for several years. Tiny little stripy balls of fluff, their dedicated parents are catching lots of small fish in the Shallow Lagoon to feed to them. They are staying close to the reeds, into which they can quickly dive if an aerial predator heads their way.

Last weekend, several visitors watched as a lesser black-backed gull picked an adult little grebe (from a different pair) out of the water and took it onto one of the islands, ready to gulp.  A pair of coots and an oystercatcher nearby, both with nests or chicks, weren't happy with the gull's presence, flew noisily at the big bird, allowing the little grebe to break free, and plop back into the water, presumably with a headache but apparently otherwise unharmed.

The great crested grebes, which hatched two young almost three weeks ago, lost one chick early on, but the surviving chick is now pretty big - but it doesn't stop it climbing on the back of mum, almost sinking her in the process! The mute swans also lost one of their cygnets this week, but two remain, and are now a couple of weeks old. 

Away from the lagoons, three of our brood of boisterous house sparrows fledged from the nestbox with a nestcam bringing a live feed into the Visitor Centre.  Sadly, one chick died, and we removed that from the box on Monday.  By Thursday, the parent birds were back in the box and another four eggs have now been laid. Pop into the Visitor Centre over the next few weeks to see how they get on.

Warmer weather has finally encouraged some other wildlife to wake up, mate and lay eggs. Lots of common blue butterflies are on the wing, with peacock and green-veined whites also spotted.  Our first damselflies are out too: large red, blue-tailed and common blue - the shallow ponds near the Carneddau Hide have been the best places to look.  The Bridge Pond is alive with fish, mostly sticklebacks, but also freshwater shrimps, and several visitors have reported a large eel in there - this may explain why we haven't seen many damselflies here this year!

Scarcer visitors this week include a black-tailed godwit today (5th), redstart yesterday, up to four pochards and a goosander (unseasonal for here), white wagtail (1st), sanderling (30th), wheatear (29th),and Sandwich tern (29th)

The first bee orchids are in flower - will we have as many as last year, when we counted almost 400? The first ones have popped up near the Afon Ganol, at the south end of the reserve. Look out too for house martins collecting mud from the estuary to build their nests, and lots of young starlings feeding on the saltmarsh. Finally, visitors today reported a family of seven stoats on the estuary path, so expect more sightings in the next couple of weeks.