A pair of House Sparrows was at the entrance gate today, which is slightly odd. They tend to turn up around this time of year and I assume they are adults that have bred somewhere nearby and are foraging for food for growing chicks. There were four Great Crested Grebes on the reservoir displaying to each other still, but it must now be getting a bit late for those birds to move on and make an attempt to nest? The juvenile Grey Wagtail was being fed by it's parents along the river and looks like its getting on fine.
The sound of Long-tailed Tit calls seems to be coming from all along the river now and there is three groups. Whether this means three nests have fledged or more I'm not sure. There was also a group of freshly fledged Great Tits by the car park and more being fed in the nest still in the oak tree in the water treatment works. Common Whitethroats and Sedge Warblers are busy collecting food now so we must have some pairs successfully nesting. In the wood the sound of chick begging calls gave away the location of two Blue Tit nests, one deep in a crevice in a multi-stemmed hawthorn and one in thick ivy growth on a pine trunk.
In the Upper Cherwell Valley there were six Coot chicks fledged from one of the nests, just as the damselflies are emerging so there is plenty of food. The second nest still had an adult sat on it so maybe they haven't fledged yet.
The noisiest fledglings around at the moment though are the Starlings! I estimated around sixty Starlings were seen today in total with about half of them juveniles. They were catching recently emerged mayflies in the wood to start with and then were out around the reservoir catching crane flies and other invertebrates. Every time an adult caught something there were hungry juveniles squabbling to get it.
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