30th Jun 2017

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, it has been a very busy few weeks!

The end of the month was relatively quiet but there were a few notable sightings. The main thing being the start of gulls gathering at the reservoir in the afternoons and the first returning Yellow-legged gulls of the summer. Some days John had 4 or 5 at a time.

Steve had a Great Crested Grebe and 45 Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the 18th.

John had up to 200 big gulls on the 20th including an adult Yellow-legged Gull. On the 21st 4 (or possibly 5) Yellow-legged Gulls - 2 2CY and 2 3CY. An adult was present again on the 23rd. At least 5 again on the 26th and then it went a bit quiet for gulls again.

All photos courtesy and copyright of JFT

On the 27th John had a Little Ringed Plover and one Yellow-legged Gull (ad or near ad) was seen by Steve on the 28th. On the same day Steve also saw juvenile Whitethroat at the reservoir and two juvenile Little Grebes with the two adults at the Borrow Pit pool. We had no evidence of nesting here but it seems that they have.

11th Jun 2017

Bird wise, very quiet but that is to be expected now everything is nesting or even finished nesting. However, it was the first weekend I saw good numbers of dragonflies and damselflies. There was Emperor, Four-spotted Chaser, Black-tailed Skimmer, Banded and Beautiful Demoiselle and Large Red, Common Blue, Azure and White-legged Damselflies. it was a nice surprise to see the White-legged as I didn't see any last year.

There was also a Common spotted and four Bee Orchids and it was fantastic to see four Grass Snakes basking along one of the paths. More than I have seen here in one go than over the last 10 years. The only disappointment, was a real lack of butterflies. I saw one white spp and a Common Blue and other than that the odd Small Tortoiseshell.

9th Jun 2017: 'portlandica' Commic Tern

Well this week has definitely been quiet. Unfortunately I haven't been out too much but John and Steve have been visiting on various days. On Tuesday lunch time John phoned me to say he had a 2CY tern at the reservoir and Steve was there and saw it too. It was awful weather and they were struggling to see any detail of the birds plumage and although Steve had mentioned Arctic Tern, the general consensus was that it was a Common Tern. It stayed the day and actually into Wednesday too, when John saw it in the evening. It was dry then and John managed to get the photos below. After John had posted them on twitter, there was a report of a 2CY Arctic Tern put out by a popular bird news service. We were surprised and a little confused.

I asked for more information and confirmation of the identification and they kindly came back to me with the following. 'The amount of black around the eye is beyond what a Common Tern would show, and, more importantly, all the primaries are of the same age. A Common Tern would have two generations of primaries at this time of year, having moulted the inners and retained the worn outers.'

Very informative and a great record for the reservoir.

4th Jun 2017

It was a quiet weekend, but there was finally some damselflies out.

2nd May 2017

The end of this week has been fairly quiet again. John has noted gulls gathering up, generally up to 30, with most being Lesser Black-backed and a few Herring Gulls. This evening I popped up and there were two Common Terns foraging over the reservoir.

Both photos courtesy and copyright of JFT