Hello All
A lovely female marsh harrier has been present on site since Thursday. Spending most of her time hunting over the meadow she was sighted again today buy a couple of visitors. A group of 10 lesser redpoll were reported feeding in the silver birches over the weekend and the male pintail continued to show well from the Gadwall hide. The Gadwall was also the place today for sightings of pintail and an actively fishing kingfisher and a couple grey wagtails which also popped in to the car park for a root around today.
But the big news of the weekend was a great white egret seen heading south over the Draper hide a 16.10 on Saturday evening, probably heading to the heron roost on Netherhall GP. It was seen returning north once again at 6.56 the following morning by members of the ringing group. A first for Rye Meads! So i could not let this opportunity pass by and decided to spend an hour in the Draper hide to see if it once again passed over as it headed to roost.
So i headed up to the Draper hide. On arrival at around 3.40 the starling numbers were already building up on the pylon and provided a near constant squabbling noise as a back drop until heading to roost. I had time to carry out a quick count with a nice 107 teal, 34 gadwall, 14 mallard, 1 mute swan, 19 moorhen, 3 wigeon (1 nice male) 2 coot, 2 female tufted duck, 1 female shoveler, 1 little grebe, green woodpecker, also heard water rail, cettis, robin and meadow pipit. Then the gulls started to stream over head heading to roost on the reservoirs to the south and i had to keep my eyes pealed for the big white! The starling numbers increased to a sqaurking 450+ before splitting in to 2 groups one heading in to roost on the Lee Marsh and the other heading east over the Draper and either on to HMWT or the sewage works to roost. Then a sparrow hawk shot through chased by a crow. Magpie numbers started to build up for roost getting to a whopping 67! Between 16.20 and 16.30 the last of the starlings settled in to the Lee Marsh they had been a bit disrupted which could have been due to the sparrow hawk causing problems and the last few gulls headed over but still no great white. After 16.20 a blackbird started scolding, the lapwing came up off lagoon 1 and headed away to the east in a large low flying flock, 2 cettis warbler had a vocal couple minutes and 2 water rail screamed at each other while some passing snipe gave themselves away by calling as they flew, though i could not pick them up in the growing gloom. The smell of wood smoke appeared in the air and i decided to call it quits and head back to the office at 16.30. Sadly there was no sign of the great white egret this evening, but i did spend an enjoyable hour watching all the wildlife settling in for the night, and that is not to say i wont try again tomorrow!
Thanks
Vicky