Thanks to volunteer Gary for his report and photos
Walking out of the visitor centre I heard a strange sound; it took a few seconds to register what it was as I hadn’t heard it for a year – a male fallow deer grunting his rutting challenge. The day was rather dull, and a little chilly, but at least it stayed dry. Quite a few chiffchaff scattered around the trail, usually with gangs of long-tailed tits, and bullfinches flashing their white rumps are becoming more visible as the trees lose their leaves. At the Hanger wildfowl numbers are building with already impressive numbers of whistling wigeon - 500, teal – 500, shoveler – 50, but just two pintail. Mallard numbers were difficult to assess as they kept to the margins and didn’t budge when the rest were spooked. Four ruff were showing well (a further 12 at Little Hanger) and on the main flood one little stint, two dunlin, eight snipe and possibly 400 lapwing. A single house martin and a redwing were poignant reminders of the changing season.
Even though it wasn’t exactly warm, red admiral butterflies, common and hawker dragonflies were in sheltered spots such as Adder Alley and Fattengates. Impressive and mostly docile hornets are attracted to ivy flowers and are particularly numerous in Fattengates at the moment and are well worth a look, but if you go there, don’t be fooled if you hear a buzzard calling because I was initially caught out by a jay giving a near perfect imitation of a Buzzards mewing call – very strange, but quite common.
A female type marsh harrier gave good views from Winpenny, as did a pair of Stonechat.
A distant red kite patrolled the southern perimeter and at least four kestrels did likewise. Four Egyptian geese briefly made an appearance on the river bank.
Gary also took this photo of a mystery mushroom found on the trail between West Mead and Redstart Corner.
This has been catching the eye of a few people over the week. I think it is a fly agaric only missing the spots and the colour is paler - there are a few variants/different forms of fly agaric and perhaps it is one of these - Anna.