Morning all
How are you?
So I posted a couple of pictures I took over our 10th Birthday Bash, but I thought I would give you a few more pictures and tell you all that happened over the weekend!
So the exciting news was that the baby kingfishers at the Kingfisher hide fledged that morning!Visitors were lucky enough to see the fledging (they go so quick - one visit was telling me it was "blink and you miss it" quick!)
The adult male has been feeding the babies - we haven't seen the female in a while, we thought the young should have fledged last Wednesday but if it's just been the one adult feeding the young it makes sense that they are a few days late.So on the morning of Sunday 9 September the male was flying about going in the bank without fish (trying to lure the babies out - almost "I'm not going to give you a fish unless you come out here") Visitors were lucky enough to catch one of the babies leaving the bank and fly into the trees around the edge of the bank. In the end we saw three young hidden around the area - it did look like the male was trying to lure another baby out, but he couldn't. It did get quite hot in the afternoon, so it is possible the remaining young was waiting until the temperature dropped a little. The babies tend to hide away in the bushes for a few days with eth adults still feeding them, until they are ready to head off and find their own territory.
Have a look at this picture - I borrowed it from the forum section.. go and have a look Simon Hurwitz has written up his account and added three pictures of the fledglings!
Picture by Simon Hurwitz
So what else occured... well I've posted a couple of pictures already - have a look here!
Steve Kershaw had a fabulous display of his amazing wildlife art.
I'm rather upset that I didn't get to have a look through Steve's art, I wanted to get some! Next time Steve! :)
Picture by Christine von Hagen!
I've already shown you some pictures of the stands so go and click on the link if you haven't seen them.
The lovely Derrick and Sue (RSPB volunteers) were doing a Wildlife Watch in the morning to show people what wildlife was around. They went to the Tern Hide at one point... and they were showing some wildlife to a very nice young lad... who wanted to write down the widllife that he had seen on the white board - I had to share as I love it:
Isn't that the best drawing ever?
So... as it was a birthday party we decided it would be fun to wear our best frocks/ [the male version of a party frock]. This is me and the boys (Rye Meads' regular volunteers) in our best outfits!
From left to right we have Keith Bedford (lead volunteer and he had a wildlife photography display), me (your bloggerer), and Tom Mason (one of our volunteers, and young photographer - he also had a stand of his wildlife photography)
Don't we scrub up nice occasionally! ;)
Picture by Christine von Hagen
But it wasn't all fun and games... I was working too... I was working... honest! ;)
What? You have to twirl! :)
Picture by Keith Bedford
No birthday party is complete without cake.
So two of our lovely volunteers (Amanda and Brian) brought us our very own cake!
Here you can see Daphne (one of our fabulous reception volunteers), Keith, and Catherine MacLeod-Smith (RSPB Development Officer from The Lodge nature reserve in Sandy) blowing out the candles
The very lovely David Lindo - The Urban Birder - was here too!
He came along to help us celebrate and go for a walk:
Keith, David and Lou
here's us in the Draper hide.
We even persuaded a couple of regular visitors to wear their best party outfits too! Thanks ladies!
We had a great day! I hope you did too!
I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to all of YOU!
Thank you for the last ten years! We've enjoyed it, and we hope you have too!
We hope to see you soon!
Lou