An early start with a visit to the Ouse Washes RSPB reserve, a site I hadn’t been to for some months. Had a brief stop at the southern end of the Washes at chain corner where there was at least 20 Cattle Egret and 2 Great-White Egret, along with 30+ Little Egret. Annoyingly most of the Cattle Egret flew off before an accurate count could be made.
Quickly on to the RSPB reserve, it was nice to see the water levels had dropped considerably from reports only a couple of weeks ago. Back then heavy rain had completed flooded the wash, when this happens it’s a disaster as it washes away any eggs/small young of all species nesting on the 16 mile stretch and that’s a lot of nests!
Now the problem, for viewing anyway, is the vegetation which chocks up the pools. Stockdales pool wasn’t any good but the cadbury pool was ok, when levels drop a bit more it will be excellent. There was also an area of flattened vegetation between stockdale and cadbury that was being used by 100+ Lapwing, 42 Redshank and 1 Avocet. Large post breeding groups of Starling flying around with at least 400+, 2 Bittern heard booming, a male Cuckoo was still singing and at least 12 Great-White Egret moving around the wash.
At the cadbury pool a pair of Oystercatcher had two fully fledged juvenile and 8 Summering Whooper Swan were present. Often the Whooper Swan that spend the summer on the washes are injured birds that cannot migrate, this wasn’t the case with all the birds here as they looked fine when seen wing flapping.
This visit to the Washes wasn’t one of my better ones but it usually does produce the unexpected and this came in the form of a single Black Tern which fed around cadbury pool for 10 minutes.
Over Fowlmere early on the 23rd. It was a lovely sunny and eventually hot morning. The Spotted Flycatcher was showing well in the spring hide area and the three juvenile Barn Owl were out on the ledge of the triangular nest box. There was a lack of Marsh Harriers, as far as I know there has been no sign of any birds all weekend, it looks like they have dispersed already which is earlier than usual. By chance I did come across the distinctive male Marsh Harrier hunting fields about 3 miles to the east of the reserve in the evening. I imagine the Harriers will pop back from time to time but for now that’s them done for another year.
Butterflies on the reserve seemed a bit more numerous but still way off what I would expect on a hot day in June. Marbled White and Meadow Brown got into double figures, just a couple of Large Skipper and saw my first Ringlet of the year.
Like the Butterflies, Dargonfly numbers are low at the moment but there was a very welcome find when Arf and I went to see if we could see any Downy Emeralds at the Drewer hide pool. There were no Downy Emeralds but there was a male Norfolk Hawker, the first record for the reserve! With the spread of the species in southern England it’s been expected for some time but it’s still a great surprise when it happens. Unfortunately wasn’t able to get any photos but hopefully it will stick around and there will be a chance yet.
Cooper and Scott 