Hello All
Since fledging their first brood on 24 May the kingfishers have been busy courting and mating in preparation for the second brood. They have settled on a new hole for this clutch (middle row of sand right hand end) and fingers crossed incubation will start soon.
A number of broods of canada geese are on site with rapidly growing goslings, mute swans have cygnets, a few pochard have young along with broods of mallard and gadwall. The black headed gull eggs are hatching and the rafts are now full of fluffy chicks, and with 260 pairs on site there are a lot of young.
A pair of garganey have been showing on and off, from the Draper hide, since Sunday (29 May) but both yesterday (2 June) and today (3 June) they have shown very well feeding around the shallows and islands. Joining the breeding lapwing on the scrape have been redshank 2 on the 19 May, little ringed plover 2 on 2 June and 5 oystercatcher on 22 May and to top it off a wood sandpiper today! A late snipe also showed at the warbler hide 28 May.
We put out the last raft for the late arriving common tern on 24 May and within 2 days had 2 pairs with eggs. These have since been joined by others and we now have up to 10 pairs on the raft and another 2 on the Draper scrape, so fingers crossed this cold weather clears up and they have a successful breeding season. Also reported hobby 2-4 regularly, sky lark singing in the meadows most mornings and still getting cuckoo calling.
Other wildlife sightings have included our first banded demoisell of the year on 26 May, hairy dragonfly 22 May. We also had a grass snake along with potentially our first record of slow worm under one of the reptile sheets along the trails on 13 May.
Thanks
Vicky