I visited the reserve this evening. Walking along the eastern footpath I heard a singing cuckoo and a bird flew over the lagoons. The bird highlight of my visit was a long-eared owl that flew over my head as I stood on the footpath - not sure who was most surprised, me or the owl as it looked down at me! The family party of shelduck is now down to three ducklings - initially saw five, then four on Wednesday evening. There were two redshanks on the largest silt lagoon, several pairs of lapwings, an adult oystercatcher with a fluffy chick and a pair of little ringed plovers with two juveniles. Two common terns were feeding over Phases 1 and 2. The hobby left it late this evening, not appearing over the reedbed until 10 pm, where there were lots of moths and mayflies for it to catch.
With the weather better tonight there was some bat activity. The first bat I heard on the detector was a common pipistrelle flying along the eastern hedgerow. A noctule was flying over the southern silt lagoon, emitting its characteristic staccato 'chip chop' echolocation. Two soprano pipistrelles flew over, their wet slap calls loudest at 55 KHz as opposed to 45 KHz for common pipistrelles. Three Daubenton's bats were over the south west silt lagoon, characteristically flying low over the water and their echolocation calls picked as a crackling on the detector (usually described as sounding like burning stubble). Another Daubenton's bat was over the southern silt lagoon and in the wood there were at least another three common pipistrelles.