Another week has passed since the flood and now Tarmac’s pumps are starting to take effect. Two large pumps are busy discharging water out of the site and levels have dropped around 12 inches since Tuesday, when the second pump was turned on. This has made it slightly easier to get to our bird feeders and to retrieve our floating fish shelters which have come lose from their anchors and have been floating just offshore for the last week.
Bird records from this week include the three curlew feeding among flood debris with black-headed gulls, that have been present for around two weeks, a fly over goosander on Monday afternoon, a peregrine hunting over silt lagoon 6 on Tuesday evening was a great sighting and it certainly put on a good show, swooping after starlings above me and a female sparrowhawk over Phase 2 on the same afternoon.
Kingfishers have been very visible in the last week, with a individual over silt lagoon 5 on Tuesday and another calling from silt lagoon 6 this morning. A Cetti’s warbler let out a burst of song from silt lagoon 6 on Tuesday and a total of 50 pied wagtails flew south west on Tuesday evening, obviously going to roost somewhere – anyone know where?
And it was nice to see some invertebrates on Tuesday too, with a picture winged fly (Diptera: Tephritidae) by the containers and several species underneath one of our floating fish shelters, including Notonecta glauca (the greater water boatman), Corixa sp. (lesser water boatman), freshwater shrimps (Gammarus sp.) and several species of water beetle.
There were also two roe deer around the southern end of the reserve on Monday.