We finally said goodbye to the river warbler this week. After just over 2 weeks with us. The last confirmed sighting was on Saturday morning. It was great to have such an obliging rarity on the reserve in a good location for visitors too. We've had lots of happy punters and many new visitors to the reserve to see it and all the other wonderful wildlife Ham Wall has to offer.
Bitterns have featured highly on peoples wish list this week and I would guess that the majority of bittern seekers haven't been disappointed. Many sightings from the first viewing platform (VP1) this week often making long flights in front with some passing over VP1 and heading off over the Waltons section. Reports also from the Avalon hide of quite regular flights there too. I myself had a very close encounter along the grassy path close to where the river warbler was. It flew just a few yards in front of me doing its croaking call in flight. John Crispin has caught an image of a bird doing just that here. Thanks John:
Thanks also to Graham Wagner for his bittern image captured this week from VP1:
VP1 and the Avalon hide do seem like the most likely places to see one although they can of course be seen anywhere. Things may start to quieten down after the next couple of weeks as young birds fledge and activity reduces drastically.
Whilst at either of those locations, you'll almost certainly see marsh harriers. From VP1 they have been seen dive bombing an area of the reedbed again (as last week), most likely there are young bitterns here close to fledging - that's my theory anyway. The marsh harriers in front of the Avalon hide have been witnessed undertaking food passes this week on several occasions with these images taken by John Crispin yesterday - thanks John:
They've also been seeing off any competition such as this pesky crow, again photographed by John Crispin. Thanks again John:
Also whilst at the Avalon hide keep an eye open for the great crested grebes here, which seemed to be sitting on a nesting platform again. I didn't have my binoculars with me (a school boy error for any nature reserve warden) so I couldn't tell exactly. There have certainly been young grebes seen around the Waltons section this week with parents. On several occasions seen resting on their parents backs. The next two photos from Graham Wagner and John Crispin so two sides of parenting, first kindness and gentleness then a good old fashioned reprimand - this youngster obviously needed putting in its place. Thanks to both for their photos.
and a further shot from John Crispin of an adult swallowing a decent sized fish.
Plenty of other young birds to look out for - these young reed warblers were seen along the way to the Avalon hide and photographed by Graham Wagner - thanks Graham:
Elsewhere Alan Wood managed this shot of a young reed warbler - thanks Alan:
He also got this lovely shot of a fledged robin:
I was noticing plenty of family groups of birds along the main path this week and a host of different species including: song thrush, blackbird robin, goldfinch, chaffinch, blackcap, willow warbler, garden warbler (near VP1), chiffchaff, bullfinch, treecreeper, goldcrest, long tailed tit, blue tit and great tit.
I also saw a number of birds taking dust baths on the main track. You may have seen them doing this yourself at home in dry dirt or dust often after a water bath. The dust is thought to absorb excess preen oil and remove dry skin, lice etc. This keeps their feathers in tip top condition and stops them becoming too greasy or matted.
As I mentioned last week, this morning I was out with Chris Sperring from the Hawk & Owl Trust to check out our barn owl boxes. He is fully licensed to do this - otherwise it is an offence to knowingly disturb these birds when breeding.
I must say I was expecting a better result than we had but the story hopefully isn't over. Only one box drew a complete blank but other boxes had been used by something at least. One we believe was used by Tawny owls, 2 had evidence of use by stock dove. In fact we could hear a stock dove calling very close by to one location. 2 had been used by squirrels and another had been taken over with a jackdaws nest. However, the good news is we did have a pair of barn owls . Unfortunately, the only box we couldn't properly check was a very old precarious looking box, which we thought would have fallen apart this last winter. Well, it survived the winter and high winds etc, so we think it likely that young owlets are present here (as we have seen barn owls carrying food and they are certainly way too active not to have youngsters.
It wasn't safe enough to check this box and potentially put the young owlets in danger but I will try to set up a camera trap to capture images of adult birds entering with food and later on emerging owlets to try and give the story a happy ending. We had already set up a replacement box put up nearby for when the other failed which was also in use by an adult bird. If I have any luck with the camera I will of course keep you updated. Many thanks again to Chris for taking time out to help us today - always a pleasure to have you on our patch.
Barn owls are being seen daily at the moment particularly early mornings and late evenings - try VP1 or the Avalon Hide perhaps. Thanks to Graham Wagner who managed this shot on Wednesday close to the Avalon Hide:
Other birds of prey spotted on Ham Wall this week include: tawny owls being heard in the evening, a red kite over the car park on Tuesday, a sparrowhawk seen from VP1 on a few occasions this week, buzzards on most days, two reports of merlin from VP2 this week, kestrel seen on at least 2 occasions, marsh harriers of course and hobby. Hobby are being seen quite regularly over Waltons and from VP1. It's so good to watch how aerobatic they can be in flight as they chase down their insect prey.
Dragonflies are of course one of their favourites and you can often see them swoop up, catch one and devour it on the wing. Dragonfly numbers have improved over the last couple of weeks after the very unsuitable May weather. Look out for the last of the hairy dragonflies, the very large emperor, southern hawker, scarce chaser, four spotted chaser (often in very large numbers around Waltons) and black tailed skimmers (you'll often see these resting on the pathways in front of you as you walk the reserve.
Damselflies too are abundant with blue tailed, variable, common blue, azure and red eyed all recorded this week along with the wonderful banded demoiselle along the main drain. Of course damselflies are not just food for birds, dragonflies will catch them too and many are caught in a spiders web such as this damsel in distress photographed by John Crispin - thanks John:
Plenty of other food items on the menu too:
Hopefully with some settled weather butterfly numbers will pick up a bit too. This week I've seen: Red Admiral, green veined white, speckled wood, small tortoiseshell, comma, small copper and brimstone but of course there are others such as the first reports of meadow brown. Look out also for the scarlet tiger moth I mentioned in last week's blog.
Also seen this week: a weasel in the vicinity of the Avalon Hide, a record of an adder (written on our sightings board but I have no location), grass snakes including one seen around the car park (don't worry they are not venomous - you may even see them swimming in the water), 2 jays seen in the wood near the Avalon Hide, whitethroat seen across the drain from VP1, green woodpecker heard near the end of the reserve and great spotted woodpecker seen daily, cuckoos still calling this week (didn't hear one this morning though) - try Waltons or VP1 (although I had one at the far end of the reserve when I heard the green woody), Iberian water frogs still calling loudly particularly in the evenings, plenty of swifts flying over and the odd swallow, little grebes at the Avalon Hide along with a report of a water rail this morning, bearded tits also seen close to the Avalon Hide or just walk along the grassy footpath and listen for their calls and of course great white egrets easily spotted everyday - even when they try to hide - thanks again to John Crispin for his photo.
I think I'd better leave it there for this week. Thanks to all who contributed their images and thanks to all for reading. Have a great weekend!