May is finally here and we have plenty to tell you about from the first week of the month. Bird song is filling the air, with blackcaps, chiffchaffs, whitethroats and numerous warblers all in full voice! If you don’t know your chiffchaff from your great tit, why not join our knowledgeable staff and volunteers on a guided dawn chorus walk on 17 May. Check out http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/seenature/events/details.aspx?id=tcm:9-399391 for more details.
Avocets are still a common sighting on Main Bay; you can usually get a good view of them from the duck feeding platform. It’s been a good week to spot a raptor too; there is a hobby that has been regularly putting in an appearance as well as the occasional red kite, buzzard and marsh harrier.
Avocet in flight - David Tipling (rspb-images.com)
Over at Lin Dike there have been almost daily sightings of a male garganey. Garganeys are migratory ducks, spending their winters in southern Africa, India and Australasia and their summers in Europe. The males have an interesting crackling call, which is really different from the well known quack of other ducks.
Pairs of little ringed plovers have been seen regularly at Big Hole and from Pickup Hide on the Discovery trail. A bright yellow eye ring is a great way to help spot these little wading birds. If you’re heading down to Pickup hide with the family, why not try our new Nature by Numbers quiz along the Discovery trail – ask for a quiz sheet in the visitor centre!
We’ve had a couple of sightings of Arctic terns over the past week. Arctic terns are epic migrants – travelling pole to pole from their breeding sites in the Arctic and the coast of Antarctica. Round trips average out at over 44,000 miles, with the largest distance recorded at a whopping 57,000 miles! That’s the longest known migration in the animal world, which is pretty impressive for a relatively small bird.
Arctic tern - Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
If you’ve been down at the pond dipping platforms in recent weeks, you may have been lucky enough to catch a few dragonfly nymphs. These soon-to-be dragonflies spend the first part of their lives underwater, where they feed on pretty much anything smaller then they are! In the past couple of days, the first newly emerged adult dragonflies and damselflies have been seen zooming around the ponds, so keep your eyes open if you’re down there pond dipping!
And finally, remember the blue tit in the one of the visitor centre nest boxes we mentioned back in April? We’ve been watching as the nest has developed and we are all really excited as there are finally some eggs! She began laying on 1 May and is now incubating, so hopefully in the coming weeks we will have some baby blue tits! Visitors and staff alike have been cooing over the sweet male who is often seen bringing his mate a juicy caterpillar or two – now that’s true love!