Recent Sightings 16-23rd February Siberian Winter follows Spring - thanks to volunteer Phil for his report & photos
A fine and rather spring like day on Friday 16th was followed by a damp mild and drizzly one on Monday 19th when I attended for the monthly WeBS count. However by Friday 23rd a bitter north easterly breeze had set in which the forecasters assure us is the start of a cold snap from Siberia.
Despite the chill a dunnock was singing near the Visitor Centre and a greenfinch was calling its characteristic “teeez” and looking very spring like in the bright sunshine near the top of the Zigzag Path.
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Around Upperton’s Field and the Zigzag path it is worth looking out for a lively flock of linnets, often to be seen there at present. On 19th I found them perching in a tree between the field and the path and this photo shows just a fraction of the full flock.
On 23rd I headed to West Mead in the hope of catching a closer view of the wintering Temminck’s stint which has favoured that area in recent days. It seemed that many visitors had the same idea and the hide was very full.
I had no difficulty finding the stint feeding on the grass beyond the main pool. However a rather territorial lapwing tried to bully it away and then a whole herd of deer came running by and it was forced to move. You can just see it as a tiny white speck in the pool on the right of this photo.
The good news for the watchers however was that the deer had pushed the stint closer to the hide. So, after being with us for 3 months, it was finally possible for me to study its plumage properly in a scope. Even better it ended up just a few yards from a dunlin (a key confusion species when seen from a distance) and I was able to take a rather distant photo which gives some idea of the size comparison between the stint on the left and the dunlin on the right.
After a frosty night much of the pool was frozen and many of the ducks had been forced into a small area to the left of the hide. A female teal decided to cross between two of the islands on foot.
Then something out of my sight caused a disturbance and all the ducks flew away in a hurry towards Winpenny. In this photo there are examples of all of our usual wintering duck species: wigeon, teal, shoveler and pintail.
At Winpenny a pair of mute swans appeared to the right of the hide looking graceful and serene in the water which was free of ice in the sunshine
However when they decided to walk across to the pool in front of the hide they looked very ungainly
Also at Winpenny a group of snipe were playing their usual hide and seek game with the watchers. I can count 5 in this photo although a 6th was present.
Snipe are often stationary for long periods but these birds were quite mobile and feeding frequently, showing the sewing machine needle technique that is also characteristic of the similarly long billed black tailed godwits.
It became very clear on Friday 16th that my prediction from 2 weeks ago that the godwit numbers would be very much lower by then had been wrong. There were several hundred still present and on Monday 19th in the afternoon after the WeBS count I estimated there to be an impressive 550 godwits still on the North Brooks.
On Friday 23rd however I could only find 18. Does this mean that most of the godwits have set off back to Iceland? Only time will tell. Certainly the birds have been feeding in different areas of the reserve more in recent weeks, but with our wardens working on the anti-predator fence on the South Brooks it is not surprising that none were reported there. There are however other nearby parts of the valley that could be used for feeding, so having learned my lesson I will make no further predictions about godwit numbers.
Small parties of bullfinches seem to have been prominent recently eating buds from the bushes and trees. On 16th I was lucky enough to find a very handsome male on the edge of the field behind the Hanger just a few yards away.
There are still many lapwings on the reserve, but the very large numbers of winter have now fallen and some of the birds are beginning to show breeding behaviour. Returning to the Visitor Centre on Friday 23rd I was intrigued to see a flock of lapwings flying over Upperton’s Field and later pecking around there. We see lapwings throughout the year over the brooks but it’s easy to forget that these were once common farmland birds sometimes using ploughed fields with spring sown crops for feeding and nesting. A tractor had spent much of the day harrowing Upperton’s Field with lapwings in mind and it seemed that the some of the birds had responded.
With a fine evening in prospect I returned to West Mead to watch another wonderful winter sunset.