Evening folks! Here is a summary of the birds seen at Old Moor today…
Counting stuff is easy right? Well, when it comes to birds, it’s not quite as easy as you might think. Take the case of Old Moor’s growing sandpiper population. These are small, highly mobile waders that are adept at exploring the muddy areas around Old Moor’s lakes.
Sandpipers feed on insects and small invertebrates that they find near the water’s edge and, by design, Old Moor has lots of such edges!
Today for example, common sandpipers could be found around the Mere and its islands; the Wader Scrape and its islands as well as the edges of Wath Ings. The most reasonable count seemed to be that there were fifteen common and five green sandpipers though I’d happily accept a higher total!
Green sandpiper from Ian Morris. Thanks Ian.
Meanwhile, Kenneth Foundation and Gary Stones provided the picture from Adwick Washland today. They reported: two little egret, three avocet, three black-tailed godwit, five common sandpiper, three snipe, one green sandpiper, one ringed plover, three avocet, one hundred lapwing, six teal, seven yellow wagtail, one little owl and a male redstart – a bird that has been present now for twenty-six days! Thanks both.
Back at Old Moor, the afternoon’s sunshine provided excellent conditions for observing the butterfly population. Seen today were: common blue, small copper, small white, green-veined white, gatekeeper, speckled wood and small tortoiseshell.
Finally, little egrets could be found from just about every hide on the reserve today so I’ll finish up with one that caught my eye from Wath Ings.
Until next time.