Saturday was National Moth Night, and a few folk joined us to see what goes bumb in the night. It was a little chilly and damp, which kept numbers of moths down, but we did manage to see and hear pipistrelle bats on Saturday night, and we caught a flame carpet and a scalloped hazel (moths) to get a closer look at. On Sunday morning we had a few more species to look at which were caught in the trap over night.
Sunday morning was delightful in terms of birds also. An early morning count gave me amazing views of a female marsh harrier from a good vantage point. I noticed she was sporting the latest fashion in wing tags, and know that she fledged last year, so not likely to attempt breeding this year, but if the site proves suitable she may well return in the future.
Later in the day I saw a second female marsh harrier, this one not tagged, so interesting to know that there were 2 birds around.
One group of visitors timed their stop in Gullery hide to perfection to see a rare interaction between marsh harrier and opsrey. As the male osprey flew over the reedbeds to get to the main loch he flushed the tagged marsh harrier who chased him for a short distance before deciding it must be lunchtime and went off to hunt. Our eyes turned back to the osprey as he circled and varied height, then eventually dived. He caught a fish and took it off to his favoured perch to devour the head before taking his trophy back to the nest. We watched him for a while, then I spotted the marsh harrier again, flying back towards where the osprey was settled. I suddenly realised that she had realised he was eating and thought she might have found herself an easy lunch. The osprey realised at about the same time and took off from his perch and demonstrated his amazing manouverability as he dodged the approaching harrier then headed off leaving her to hunt again. She stayed active for a while then, allowing plenty of folk to get some good views of her.
The latest count on the black headed gulls was 218 yesterday, with 72 nests clear which is slightly more than last year, so fingers crossed for some young gulls this year.
My favourite moment of the day must have been realising that the coot nest I have been watching just in front of the hides had hatched youngsters. A couple of little hatchlings, sporting their red punk 'hair styles' had moved off the nest and joined the adults feeding a short distance away - explains why the adults had been causing such a fuss all morning!
Two female mallards were also about with 5 ducklings between them.
Lots of lapwing and redshank activity in front of the hides too, along with reed bunting and sedge warblers. A few early morning visitors caught a brief glimpse of water rail near gullery hide also.