Rye Meads Sightings Blog: 14th-31st August

Its been another good season for the Rye Meads Kingfishers, although at times they've really kept us guessing! At the Kingfisher Hub, a new male arrived and was quickly put in his place by the female, leading to three successful broods. Although they took a little while to get going, once the first brood hatched, there was a short crossover with the second - so short that they hatched a week before we were expecting! A third followed and fledged this week, and there have been lots of great sightings of youngsters learning to fish at the Gadwall Hide. At the Draper Hide we know of at least two broods. Its been interesting at this hide, with mixed reports of what's been going on from our visitors. At one point there appeared to be three adults, and possibly some of the juveniles who had fledged from the Hub, which may have caused some disruption for a while. Still, a couple of successful broods, and at looks as though the two pairs of adults are all fit and healthy. The kingfisher breeding season is pretty much over, but there are still sightings around the reserve both of the adults and the fledglings. At the hub, they continue to use the old breeding bank but there was a lot more interest in the new bank so we are hopeful that they will give it a go soon! Roll on 2023...

Elsewhere we've had lots of good sightings in August, backed up by some of the fabulous photos we've seen over the last few weeks! Plenty in this one so I'll mostly let the photos do the talking this time. Sort of.

The best action shots have been from the heron family, with Grey Herons and Little Egrets putting on some aggressive displays! In contrast we've seen a few photos of a very stoic Cormorant on site. For all you fans of scientific classification, despite sharing a lot of characteristics and originally being grouped in the same order of birds (Pelecaniformes), DNA studies have shown that they are not closely related at all and have since been separated out. But back to the sightings. Little Egret numbers have been higher than Herons, pushing double figures at times whereas the Herons are either solitary or in pairs.

With the Kingfishers fledging, the Draper Hide has been the most popular, and there are plenty of signs that Autumn is around the corner. Water levels have been fairly low which has helped wader numbers, but even so we've barely had a day without a Green Sandpiper, with six being the peak over the last couple of weeks. A couple of Snipe have also stuck around, while Common Sandpipers have been less... er.. common... but still sighted fairly regularly. On the 15th August a dozen Teal even showed up around the Draper scrape which has also seen both Grey and Pied Wagtail flitting around along with the occasional Lapwing.

There's also a few of our late bloomers around, with Rose Newbold snapping Moorhen chicks and a very tufty Tufted Duck. Up to six Garganey have also stuck around but have remained frustratingly out of range of many of our photographers until John Branagan took the photo below. For a few days, the Garganey were joined at the Gadwall Hide by a solitary Wigeon too.

There's been plenty to see on the paths too, helped out by the Elder trees which have bore fruit and attracted a variety of birdlife, including Garden Warblers, Long Tailed Tits, Lesser Whitethroat and Spotted Flycatchers. Whinchat are also around on the meadow, spotted at both the Lapwing and Warbler hides. We also had reports of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker which stayed true to its name and was seen only once! There were flyovers from both swallows and House Martins, the latter of which was brilliantly caught by Steve Dimbleby below.

Away from the birdlife, we're still getting plenty of butterflies, as well as Willow Emerald damselflies around the Visitor Centre. On the first bridge, for a couple of days it was possible to see a very large Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar, but some of our favourite photos have been of the Water Voles over the last few weeks!

Thank you for reading the latest Sightings Blog, and thank you to the community in the Friends of RSPB Rye Meads Facebook group for their contributed photos. Please help us to keep this running by reporting your sightings at the Visitor Centre and writing them in our log!