After a good few days holiday in Dorset, I’ve just come back to news of more and more migrants pouring onto site. This morning the Phase 1 scrub was alive with singing birds, with willow warblers, chiffchaffs and blackcaps in full voice. After the first sedge warbler of the year on Tuesday last week, silt lagoon 6 is now full of them, posing a good challenge for the Breeding Bird Survey tomorrow morning!
And so what is new….our volunteers Julie, John, Graham and Stuart have had an excellent weekend with first records of reed warbler, grasshopper warbler, whitethroat and lesser whitethroat. That is almost our full compliment of warblers on site, with 9 out of the 10 species that breed here now in residence. Only garden warbler left to go!
Also over the weekend we were visited by Derbyshire Ornithological Society, who were given a guided walk by Warden, Paul and treated to another 2013 first, a hobby over the silt lagoons.
The sand martin bank is once again proving very popular, for the second year running. After witnessing the first holes being excavated last Monday morning, there are now well over 100 on the go, with birds swarming all over the sandy face – from a distance looking like a swarm of insects, a truly amazing sight.
However, despite all this, where are the insects? It is still very quiet in the insect world at the moment, even though temperatures are starting to rise. Two or three butterflies a day seems to be the norm, with a few species of beetles and a couple of species of hoverfly including the large and conspicuous Eristalis tenax.
I haven’t seen any Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) yet, at a time when we would be expecting the first large red and azure damsels to be flying on warm days.
After the poor breeding season last year and the prolonged flooding over winter, it will be interesting to see what happens this summer - watch this space!
And hot off the press - after an afternoon out on Phase 2 today, we have found a beautiful blue headed wagtail, or Motacilla flava flava, amongst around 20 yellow wagtails (Motacilla flava flavissima!) - excellent!