Recent sightings
As we reach the middle of breeding season, the most significant birds are the avocets, lapwings and redshanks nesting on the main scrape and surrounding wet grassland area, with chicks of all three very visible at times. As warden Al talked about in his recent blog, it’s looking like a good year!
A sizeable black-headed gull colony has formed on one of the scrape islands, with a pair of Mediterranean gulls nesting within, whilst one or two further pairs of the latter are showing breeding behaviour on the wet grassland. Good numbers of black-tailed godwits are making up the non-breeding flock.
A pair of garganey have been seen sporadically, with gadwall, a large shoveler brood, and a lone male pintail the notable ducks. Marsh Covert gurgles with the sounds of nesting little egrets and grey herons, whilst at least one cattle egret has been spending time in the colony.
Little grebes are seen a lot in the reedbed and a pair of great-crested grebes look to be nesting on Bridge Pool again while a pair of common terns are favouring the Marsh Covert hide area this year. The best of the passage waders this week were little ringed plover, ringed plover, ruff, dunlin and common sandpiper.
There’s lots of warbler activity, with a lesser whitethroat around the Burton Point railway bridge, plus common whitethroats and Cetti’s warblers throughout the reserve, reed warblers and sedge warblers mainly in the reedbed and a grasshopper warbler towards the end of the week.
Yellow wagtails can be seen at long range around the arable crop on the east side of the wet grassland. Mistle thrush and green woodpecker are best seen on the pastures adjacent to the car park and reserve office and garden, or in Burton Point field.
We’ve had a lot of raptor activity this week with, frustratingly, buzzard and kestrel seen attempting to take chicks from the scrape, whilst peregrine, hobby and a brief red kite sighting made up a good list for the time of year.
Whilst not been seen at Burton Mere Wetlands this week, a single spoonbill was seen on Wednesday evening near Neston Reedbed so there could still be one on the estuary.
The warm weather also means it has been very good for winged insects emerging. Large red, red-eyed and blue-tailed damselflies have been getting a lot of attention, with the recently opened garden a prime spot to see them. Common darter, black-tailed skimmer, four-spotted chaser are the pick of the dragonflies on the wing so far.
Various butterflies have been spotted including holly blue, orange tip, brimstone, wall brown, speckled wood and peacock, plus a cinnabar moth.
Star sighting
Without doubt, the gull-billed tern that was found late on Wednesday evening and enjoyed by a few locals who were able to get to site quickly before it vanished. It was seen again the following evening, but on Friday what is presumed to be the same bird was seen at WWT Slimbridge.
Residential volunteer Gwen helps with a redshank survey (Image: J.Langley)
Wardens wanderings
This time of year sees the wardens time taken up with a lot of monitoring and surveying of the breeding birds, which given the size of the reserve is no mean feat! John made a couple of trips to the Point of Ayr to check on the nesting waders and terns, and for any damage to the electric fence after the big tides at the start of the week.
Surveys of square plots on Burton Marsh help us calculate the breeding redshank numbers, whilst a lot of effort is also being put into monitoring the predation of chicks from the scrape and wet grassland to help us understand what we could further do in future to help the productivity of our wading birds.
Also, as grass and leaves grow rapidly in this weather, there’s been a fair amount of estate work to keep the place looking nice and neat for visitors.
Get involved
The week ahead is the school half term holiday, and we have a brand new family quiz trail all about the baby birds that are popping up across the reserve. As we move into June, more and more wildflowers will bloom, including our orchids later in the month. Our Orchids and Wildflowers event on Wednesday 20 June is your chance for a walk around Burton Mere Wetlands with an expert guide.