It seems an age since my last post with all the surveys for the breeding season and other activities so now seems like a good time for a catch up.
The season has gone well although it had patchy start with the local farm operations attracting in hundreds of herring and lesser black back gulls into the two lagoons to wash themselves after scrabbling through the plough land looking for tasty morsels just as the first lapwing eggs were hatching. Gulls being opportunists took advantage of the bite size morsels hungrily running around looking for a meal themselves but even with the best efforts of the adults shepherding their young out of harm’s way and drive the gulls away we did lose a number of eggs and young ones. However the adults are quite resilient and re-nested quite quickly. So the initial 9 pairs breeding have had several attempts to get a brood away. In fact one nest has hatched about 6 days ago giving a laying date of around the last week of May how many times they re-tried I cannot say but it does show a determination to carry forward their genetic material.
Our other main concern was the breeding redshank which although more cryptic in there nesting behavior the watchful eyes of avian predators such as the gulls but I am glad to say from a potential 5 pairs in 2017 we have counted 8 pairs this year and from there displays and general raucous calling they have young and having seen 5 chicks so far three being fully feathered I looks like they may well improve on last years productivity.
The other factor that is has had great influence this month is the weather as my title alludes. What a spring into summer we have had the volunteers and I have been recuing tadpoles from drying up puddles, the lagoons are drying at an alarming rate but shall last out the breeding season now. The cattle are back on the Saltmarsh and doing a fine job of grazing it. They will soon to move into the northern fields so we can get these field grazed down allowing us to mow the rush in July.