Took these Yesterday, just to the left of the new hide (can't remember what its called) and thought I'd share
Great shots, glad you shared them, they would not be gathering nesting material would they?
Hi
Nice photos Spaltsworth, I have not seen them on any of my visits this winter but i'm still hopeful, Mart they are getting food from the reed mace there are caterpillar larve or even the caterpiller itself (not 100% which) in the material.
Shane
Regards Shane
My Photos in Flickr.
Thanks, I'm not sure what they do with the reed mace either, all I know is that for about 30 minutes they tore them to shreds and at about 10-15ft away. I managed to fill a 16GB memory card with shots of them :-)
Shane is right.
They are after tiny micro moth caterpillars that live inside the Reedmace seed heads.
The only way to get to them is to rip the seed heads to pieces leaving little clouds of fluffy seeds floating around :)
Interestingly they also eat the seeds from the Common reed plant has I have seen them doing this at Rainham in the past.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. - Albert Einstein
Thanks for that info, I didn't know that.
Dave
great shots! They have been showing very well again today! THey seem to be dual feeding... searching for cats in the head whilst shreading and then descending to eat the dropped seed H :o)
Howard Vaughan, Information Officer
They certainly were! Great too watch and easy to get some shots as well!