Hello All,
Having just got back from 2 weeks annual leave in Brittany (lovely!) I feel like the blog has been slightly neglected over the past couple of weeks... Especially given that we have a major news flash to give out!
Just before I set off on holiday, Michael, one of the farm workers reported something very unexpected - young stone-curlew chicks on one of the plots! We had hoped that some of our pairs might try and give a second brood a go, but with the wet and cool weather we had at the beginning of summer, they had used up a lot of their energy stores, and most called it a day once they had reared one brood. Many birds did not even get that far. The Wessex stone-curlew team reported finding some very odd shaped and sized eggs over the season - possibly a sign that the repeated nesting attempts were putting a strain on the birds resources. We were more than happy with our 8 out of 10 chicks surviving to fledging. So to have a report of two stone-curlew chicks - in September - was a bit of a surprise, albeit a very exciting one.
On visiting the chicks, it would appear that they hatched on the last day or two of August, or the first few days of September. Bearing in mind it takes 6 weeks for a stone-curlew to fledge, this means that the chicks are not due to fledge until October! Luckily for them, stone-curlew are probably the latest to leave out of all our migratory birds, so there still is time for our chicks to make it.
Another piece of exciting news is that we appear to have a mini stone-curlew roost on the reserve! Once the birds have finished breeding, they head off to traditional roost sites - areas where birds form large groups to feed up and get in to condition before they head south to North Africa. It is unknown exactly why they choose the places they do, but they appear to be site faithful. So it is a great development for us to have 10 birds on one of our plots. While 10 birds is a small roost, it is significant for us because as I mentioned, birds tend to flock on traditional, known sites. We hope this small gathering is the sign of things to come on the reserve!
Keeley