What has been about this week?
Out on the wetlands, it has been fairly quiet with the water being frozen on some days. The usual teal, shoveler, mallard, gadwall, goldeneye, tufted ducks, great-crested grebes and shelducks are spread out between Fisher’s mill, Jubilee and the North pit. Goosanders have been seen cruising up and down the river. 3 oystercatchers have been spending their time between Dosthill and the North pit. Lapwings and snipe are resting on the Fisher’s mill islands. We are waiting for our first returning redshanks now, hopefully it won’t be long....Cetti’s warblers are surviving the freeze, and can be heard blasting out their explosively loud calls from the reedy/scrub edges. Along unfrozen ditches and water bodies, water rails have been more obvious, the icy weather forcing them to be bolder in their search for food.
We have acquired, what I can only think of as a pre-gull roost. At about 3pm,mainly black-head gulls with a smattering of common gulls and lesser-black backed gulls gather together on Jubilee or the Reedbed pools for an hour or so, preening and swimming about (presumably feeding on odds n sods on the waters surface) before flying off in a West or NW direction.
Unfortunately I missed out on a great-northern diver which touched down, south of Middleton, at Kingsbury Water Park on Wednesday. After running out to see if the highly mobile diver made it to Middleton, alas it didn’t and was seen flying south. I’ll be checking cormorant sized birds more closely. Speaking of cormorants, the ringed bird from last weeks blog (yellow CT7) is roosting at Kingsbury Water Park, which has an excellent cormorant roost. Within the roost there is another ringed bird (green CWR), which was ringed in June 2014 as a chick on Puffin Island, Anglesey. Thanks to Steve Pick for the information.
Away from the wetlands, the woodland trail is alive with the raucous calls of our rookery. The rooks are busy repairing and re-building their nests. The strong winds in January destroyed quite a few of them. It’s interesting to stop and watch their social hierarchies and interactions with each other. Mixed in with the rooks are jackdaws, also prospecting nest holes in the larger trees and the occasionally a raven has been seen flying over. Other birds checking out nesting holes, have been stock doves. Unassuming birds, often over looked, we have a few pairs at Middleton and are frequently seen sitting in the larger trees in the woods or in our Southern meadow.
Around the car park/heronry area, the 4 tree sparrows are still in their hedge by the farm. On an evening, 2 barn owls have been hunting over the play meadow and one visitor has seen a little owl in the same area. The little egrets are still using the heronry to roost in. Despite the hustle and bustle of the grey herons, between 17-24 are coming in to roost.
I finally saw my first siskin this week flying over the car park! There has been a notable lack of them so far. An explanation of why this might be is that there is a reported bumper crop of Sitka spruce seed, which are a favourite food of siskins. Therefore, with this natural bounty they have less need to search far and wide for food and visit feeders.
And to finish this blog, a very atmospheric photo of Fisher’s Mill! If you have any photos you would like to share please do so on our community page or via face book. I am sure they will be loads better than my attempts!
Photo by Kate Thorpe
We will endeavor to keep this blog updated on a weekly basis, but to keep your finger on the Middleton Lakes pulse check out our RSPB Birmingham, Black Country and Warwickshire facebook page and follow us on Twitter @RSPBMiddleton. If you enjoy taking photos, we would love for you to add them to our Community page.