Our visitors and volunteer wardens (VWs) have told us about these and you may seen them around the site and in the area.

Green sandpiper seen around the muddy edges,

Grey heron flying around the lakes,

Jay,   Lapwing,   Little egret,   Raven,

Robin – a friendly bird, at the canal meadow bridge, which may come to the outstretched hand if full of suet or mealworms,

Rook calling from the tall trees along the bridleway…

A visitor was telling us how creative happiness works for him.

It's looking for the bright side of everything around us. He sees it whenever he comes to Middleton Lakes.

There's the picnic area near the car park. There's the mud – it means he can wear his wellies which keep his ankles warm, he says.  And there's the puddles in which he can splosh about to wash his boots. It reminds him of his childhood…

Our visitors have told us about these birds worth looking out for and probably passing through ....

Waxwing seen in Dosthill village

Ferruginous duck - a possible pochard hybrid - there are some other pictures at gobirding.eu 

Little egret,  Shelduck,  Woodcock.

Moving along the canal and cow meadow....

Redpoll, Fieldfare, Redwing,

Water rail seen in small ditches.

Barn owl was seen perching on a post in the play…

Wildlife sightings for November 2012

This is a monthly summary so if you want more recent nature sightings please click on the recent sightings tag on the RSPB Middleton Lakes web page.

Contractors are still on site, working on the eastside (river), and have already created some great scrapes, ledges and slopes which could be seen when the water level was low. Pumping is still in operation, keeping the water levels…

A visitor said that they had not seen this from earlier this week - so apologies  if it's not new for you ....

We have been told about a water rail  mooching about under the feeders for a few minutes, early one morning.

A Cetti's warbler calling from the bridleway silt pool area.

Those who reached the wetlands – some people park at the Dog and Doublet, Bodymoor Heath, and walk along the canal - saw ....

Good news - the water levels are falling. But still ankle deep in places and very muddy.

One of our volunteer wardens (VWs) has reported seeing or being told about .....

At the feeders ....

Great spotted woodpecker

Along the bridleway .....

Water rail calling

Along the westside Wetland Track (still no circular route).

It's still a see-saw walk (up to the north end and back to the river)

Grey Heron, Jay, Sparrowhawk…

Due to the adverse weather conditions and an unfavourable forecast for tomorrow (Saturday 24th) - we have very reluctantly taken the decision to cancel the scheduled Bird Bonanza event due to take place in the play meadow.

The whole reserve is under a flood warning from the Environment Agency and some of our trails have had to be closed.

We are very sorry for letting you down and we hope this won't prevent you from…

We have been receiving reports of passage birds seen along the bridleway and from Fishers Mill Bridge viewpoint (access only from the canal towpath at the moment ):

Waxwing (along the bridleway)

Redwing and Fieldfare  (both seen from Fishers Mill Bridge).

Kingfisher  (seen flying from the heronry pools to the play meadow pools at mid-day).

Also two Great Spotted Woodpeckers flying between the feeders and the old oak tree.

Our dedicated volunteer WeBS (Winter Wetland Bird Surveys) team kindly persuaded the contractors to permit a mid-month count in the wetland area.

It was well timed because shortly after, the wetland tracks became flooded and impassable.

So for your interest ......

Fishers Mill / New Reedbed – Black-headed Gull (5), Coot (152), Gadwall (87), Great Crested Grebe (2), Grey Heron (3), Mallard (48), Moorhen (2), Mute…

But the car park is open, together with the herony viewpoint and silt pool viewpoint - so come along and bring your packed lunch. Have a snack in the  play meadow and perhaps a hot drink at the courtyard cafe.

Our volunteer wardens and visitors have told us about .... the layers of mud and the need for wellies and .....

Large flock of rooks and jackdaws over the rookery and then going to roost - seen from the car park (4pm).

Fieldfare in the nearby trees

Little egret (5) going to roost by the heronry

Great spotted woodpecker (5) on the peanut feeder and nearby trees.

Goldfinch on the nyjer seed feeder.

Robin  feeding from…

Another dry Autumn evening and the mothing team were out again with their light boxes around the play meadow and wood area.

The species recorded (all Autumn fliers) were:

December Moth, Feathered Thorn, Setaceous Hebrew Character, Yellow-line Quaker.

Thanks to ukmoths.org for these links. 

A few are new records for the site.

Thanks to all the mothing team who go out from dusk to late evening and open up the secret…

There were 2 volunteer wardens (VWs) standing just by the car park welcome board, swapping notes of sightings, awash with the rays of the late autumn sun when suddenly ...... there was a flash of brown darting from the heronry corner towards the play meadow and over to the small pools.

What was that. Was it a wren  – it was so small.

It can't be a wren - they don't fly that fast. It was a kingfisher

Our moths surveyors have spent an evening in the play meadow area with their light boxes recently and they were rewarded with a number of species.

Web sources from:  UKmoths (your guide to the moths of Great Britain and Ireland)

Common Marbled Carpet, Spruce Carpet, November Moth, Large Yellow Underwing,

Lesser Yellow Underwing, Setaceous Hebrew Character, Black Rustic, Merveille du Jour,

Red-line Quaker, Pink-barred…

The Lifeline for Lapwings project has now reached the exciting stage! After lengthy ground surveys, design and modelling and having received permission from the Environment Agency to complete the works we are now ready to go. Landscape engineers Miles Waterscapes have been awarded the contract and hope to be arriving on site this week. They will be dewatering some of the pools in order to complete the fine details at…

A volunteer warden has told us about a pair of wrens seen foraging for food on a clump of grass floating along the canal.

Also, elsewhere, a kingfisher  flying along the brook and then across to the canal.

There's a goosander (female) on the river ...

and a kestrel  over  the bridge area.

Small groups of redwing and fieldfare  have been seen.

Long-tailed tit  groups have been heard along the bridleway.

Look out for…

Wildlife sightings for October 2012

This is a monthly summary so if you want to know about more recent nature sightings,  please click on the recent sightings tag – front page when you enter the Middleton Lakes website.

This mid-autumn month had days which were wet, cold and blustery, wet starts with showers and chill winds.

There were autumn blue skies, morning mists and autumn sunshine.

The contractors are…

A visitor said if you look at a great spotted woodpecker long enough, something strange or funny will happen. Well, it happened recently.

Our feeders are set up around a cut-down tree with long and short branches. It's set up at an angle with both the long and short branches acting as feeder supports.

A male great spottie had just finished feeding from the peanut cage and went for a bill cleaning session  to a top…

Early morning is the best time to watch the feeders. The eating ports are full with the pecking tits and finches. A great spotted woodpecker is busy at the peanuts cage. There's a queue on the waiting room branch, where tits and finches wait for the feeding birds to finish and leave.

Suddenly everything stops and all the birds fly off to the close-by hedges and willows. They know it's safe there with places to perch…

The bridleway is drier but the canal meadow track is still muddy and slippery - take your mountain walking stick with you.

But it's worth the walk, just for the autumn view across the lakes from the canal viewpoint.

A good walk is to the riverside and back (at the wetland entrance, turn right and then first left towards the screen) - there are no wetland circular tracks until March. So it's time for the circular meadow…

Our keen-eyed volunteer WeBS (Winter Wetland Bird Surveys) team have found a quiet moment recently, during the contractor work, to bring you these bird counts for the wetland area.

Fishers Mill/New Reedbed – Coot (129), Gadwall (103), Great Crested Grebe (2), Little Grebe (2), Mallard (25), Moorhen (12), Mute Swan (7), Pochard (9), Shoveler (2), Tufted Duck (43), Wigeon (64).

Central Grasslands – Coot (178…

Our volunteer wardens (VWs) have reported seeing  a pair of kingfishers  flying over Fishers Mill Lake north to south to the brook where they turned west to the canal.

Look out for redwing and fieldfare  which are coming through from Northern Europe. These will be searching for berries such as on hawthorn bushes.

Also a muntjac (small deer) was seen in the grassland reedbeds along by the river.

Our warden, Stefan Bodnar, was ringing birds last weekend along the track by the feeders.

Birds ringed were blackcap, blue tit, bullfinch, coal tit, dunnock, goldcrest, great spotted woodpecker, great tit, long-tailed tit, robin, wren.

They are never harmed when handled by trained ringers. The birds are released, quickly, after taking measurements and putting a ring on a leg.

The blackcaps may be birds passing through…

Now and again I get a chance to sneak off alone onto a reserve. It's a welcome opportunity to find some peace and to reflect.

My stroll this morning across Middleton Lakes did not disappoint.

Gold and rust-coloured leaves tumbled through the air, flocks of long-tailed tits kept me company, dragonflies darted along reed-fringed ditches and a kestrel soared against the stiff autumn breeze.

But it wasn’t this wild…

We have been watching large flocks of rooks circling and weaving in a chimney formation over the heronry area, one morning, and then over the rookery on another early day.

These are birds moving out from their family groups into the safety of autumn flocks.
Here they use all the eyes of the group to find food and have a community feed in.

They eat insects amongst many foods. Perhaps they are cleaning out the many wrigglers…