Thanks to Phil for his report and photos - recent sightings Friday 24th March – Waders at West Mead
Compared to the winter months this seemed like a relatively quiet day, apart from the ubiquitous chiffchaff calls and some rather loud chaffinches.
The main interest of the day were the waders at West Mead. Lapwing display flights were continuing and when I reached the hide in the afternoon a nearby solitary female lapwing looked as if it needed a mate. Sadly there were no males nearby but this rather splendid one was photographed here in March last year.
A pair of little ringed plovers were to be seen here all day, close enough this week to make out the yellow eye ring.
A piping call accompanied a pair of redshanks flying in, which were seen from the hide several times during the day. They pottered around the wet grassy area and the edge of the pool for quite some time giving excellent views.
There are now only a few of each of our main wintering duck species left, mostly seen on the North Brooks, so the shelducks, which may breed on the reserve, are much more prominent now. There was no sign of last week’s peregrine here and I wondered if the reduced food supply and the onset of the breeding season had forced it to move away. More of a surprise were the gulls which included great and lesser black backed, herring and common gull, but not the more commonly seen black headed gull.
At Nettley’s Hide a water vole put in a brief appearance at lunchtime but a visitor mentioned that earlier in the morning there had been a lot activity here. He even speculated that one vole might have been supplying food or nesting material to a hole on the near bank as it was seen crossing the ditch in one spot several times apparently delivering vegetation.
I hadn’t seen a marsh harrier for a few weeks and wondered if that could have been due to the temporary electric fencing works which have now finished on the South Brooks. However on this occasion one bird put in a splendid display for several minutes close to Winpenny Hide, with its usual mixture of drifting close to the ground, and hovering.
While watching this another bird shot up from the ground as if from a catapult and its sharply pointed wing shape showed it to be a peregrine, belying my earlier speculation. It was easy to believe that this is indeed the “fastest bird in the world” but that description is usually applied when it stoops from a great height, not the other way round as on this occasion.
Later outside the café I spotted a nuthatch going between the feeders and the trees behind, and displaying the curious tendency of these birds to spend much of their lives upside down. I sometimes think of the nuthatch as the kingfisher of the woodlands with its similar but more muted colours and comparatively long sharp beak.
As I was staying late for the Dark Skies event I found myself back outside the Visitor Centre a couple of hours later over an alfresco takeaway supper watching the light fade and the colours in the sky become more intense, with the promise of stars to come.