Category: July 2021

I met Adam for a coffee and a catch up and then headed on to the reserve. It was very windy and there was definitely less bird life as a result.

The six Shelduck ducklings were on De L’Orne flood and I later saw them on Venner. A group of nervous Greylags took flight before I’d got anywhere near them and then circled around much closer.

From the De L’Orne screen I saw the Avocet family party again, the group of five I had seen on the 17^th July also on De L’Orne scrape. Graham said that they were seen at Titchfield a week later on the 24^th July but they have obviously made the return journey again.  There were also six adult Greenshank feeding on the scrape.

A quick stop in Black Water hide produced a now much larger group of 53 Teal many newly arrived, the males and females still looking very similar.

On Venner it was good to see the seven Tufted Duck ducklings and the seven Pochard ducklings from two broods. A smart Hobby perched on one of the fence posts at the back of Wigeon Fields and a female type Marsh Harrier drifted over. A young Heron perched in a very photogenic way while a busy group of 15 Sand Martins, 5 House Martins and a single Swallow fed low over the water.

Great Marsh was very quiet with only a single Black-headed Gull and a Curlew. Over on Mary Monts Pools two newly arrived Snipe, my first of the autumn, were hunkered down on the wet grassy margins. Snipe breed in northern uplands and a few in the south west and in the winter birds from northern Europe join resident birds.

Offshore there was little movement other than Common Terns heading west including my first juvenile of the year. A distant Gannet also hugged the Isle of Wight coastline.

From the Sailing Club the Ringed Plover family showed nicely with the second juvenile just off picture. The Common Sandpiper was still feeding near the Sluice gate but flushed as we approached with stiff wings never above the horizontal.

I spent a bit of time looking for grasshoppers and bush-crickets in the damp grassy area near the weather station. There were plenty of Mottled Grasshoppers and Field Grasshoppers on the shorter grass and bare areas, lots of Lesser Marsh Grasshoppers and a conehead species in the longer wetter grass. The short wings of the conehead suggest that this is a Short-winged Conehead but the straight ovipositor confirms that this is a young female Long-winged Conehead with wings not yet fully developed.

I was also pleased to find a Roesel’s bush-cricket. These chunky insects have much reduced wings and escape by clambering out of sight rather than springing two yards away like the grasshoppers. Until the early 20th century Roesel’s bush-cricket was only found on the south-east coast but recent years have seen a rapid expansion right across the south.

My first WeBS count. Highlights from Inchmery Quay included 405 Mediterranean Gulls, one of the highest counts here in recent years. Also 55 Curlew and 85 Oystercatchers, 3 Common Sandpiper and 5 Common Gulls.

One of the Common Gulls was wearing a colour ring. 2ABH was ringed as a 2nd winter bird in 2012 at Pitsea Landfill in Essex. It is now 11 years old. Three years after being ringed it was seen again 90 miles to the south west at Hill Head. It was seen again the following autumn, September 2016, 5 miles (as the crow flies) away at Lepe. It now appears to be returning to winter in this area with another sighting at Inchmery in July 2018 before today’s sighting. 10 years is a typical lifespan with adult survival rates of 86% pa.

90% of UK Common Gulls breed in Scotland but the odd pair have bred or tried to breed in Hampshire in the west of the Solent.

Common Gulls

I’m taking over a new WeBS sector (for more info on WeBS read here). My first count date is Sunday 25^th July and so I decided to try a dummy run today timing it for similar tides to Sunday.

My sector will be number 6 which is the Beaulieu River. Ian is taking over sector 4. Rather than count sector 6 from the Sailing Club on the Needs Ore side this sector has always been counted from the other side, at Inchmery, as the high tide roost is nearer to the northern shoreline.

The previous WeBS counter had been doing this sector for 20 years and had built up a rapport with the local landowner, this had led to private access to the small boatyard at Inchmery Quay which provided a much better viewpoint over the Beaulieu River.

As we had no hand over and no knowledge of who the land owner was I expecting to have to find a different viewpoint and looking at maps there didn’t seem to be an obvious choice. As luck would have it, Dimitri’s Dad knew the land owner and so we were able to get the same permission including a place to park and the code for the padlocked gate. I met Dimitri on site and for the 90 minutes leading up to high tide we watched how the birds use the creeks and grassy islands as the water rises.

Highlights included 52 Curlew, 81 Oystercatcher and 95 Mediterranean Gulls. The gull roost included four juvenile Mediterranean Gulls, my first of the year. There were also three returning adult Common Gulls and one of the Peregrines sat menacingly out on the marsh.

Near the boatyard entrance gate I saw my first patch Ringlet and there were several Meadow Grasshoppers chirping in the long grass. After high tide we headed over to Needs Ore and to the hides.

Along the hedge to the hides we found a Ruddy Darter perched up and looking directly at us providing a great opportunity to see the black lines which run down each side of the frons, an identification separator from Common Darter. Ruddy Darter certainly seemed to be outnumbering Common Darter today.

male Ruddy Darter

It was nice to see a second, different juvenile Little Grebe on Black Water, slightly closer this time. This one looking much more like a winter adult. At Venner a Green Sandpiper was bobbing on the edge of the island but the next time we looked it had left, silently.

Green Sandpiper and juvenile Little Grebe

From the De L’Orne screen I could see 11 distant Greenshank in the direction of the Sluice Gate although at a distance of 350m the heat haze made the views pretty awful.

We headed back to the car for lunch where I noticed a Field Grasshopper near Shore Hide, you can clearly see the densely hairy underside. It also looks like the toilet will be out of action for a while longer as I found a second brood of 6 Swallow eggs in the roof of the cubicle!

We then headed towards Mary Monts. There were lots of Lesser Marsh Grasshoppers near the Pullen kissing gate and a Meadow Grasshopper on a piece of wood showing the female’s very short wings.

It was also nice to get a slightly unusual angle on a Peacock.

A Bombus terrestris was busy on a thistle getting covered in pollen. The long lens does a nice job of blurring the background. Another splash of purple was provided by the newly flowering Purple Loosestrife on the wet area near the kissing gate.

Bombus terrestris (Buff-tailed Bumblebee) and Purple Loosestrife

I then headed off to the private areas around Gravelly Marsh. After the recent very hot weather the water levels were low on Great Marsh and there were few birds around. Adam is juggling water levels, now that birds have largely finished breeding, to ensure that contractors can get their machinery onto Black Water next month to create a scrape.

A bit of colour was provided by a bright and freshly emerged male Common Blue.

Most hoverflies only have a scientific name but this one, Helophilus pendulus, is also called The Footballer due to its stripy thorax.

One of the highlights of the day was approaching the Sluice Gate to hear a fleeing Common Sandpiper and then to have close views of the 11 Greenshank I had seen previously from the De L’Orne screen. They all appeared to be adults with ten in breeding plumage and one already in winter plumage.

There were also six Little Egrets fishing right under the Sluice Gate. The Common Sandpiper was joined by a second bird and they both called in alarm and flew away on characteristic stiff wing beats.  

Common Sandpiper and Little Egret

The bare ground around the Sluice Gate was home to good numbers of jumping Mottled Grasshoppers, one of the smallest and most variable of our grasshoppers. They show deeply indented pronotum markings, out-turned and clubbed antennae and a colourful mottled appearance.

Also nearby was a pink form of Meadow Grasshopper which was a bit easier to see in the grass.

The Ringed Plover at the Sailing Club were flying around calling and chasing each other. Surely too late for another brood?

The five young Swallows have fledged from their salubrious nest site in the roof of the toilet and they were hawking around Shore Hide first thing, you can see the short tail streamers at this age.

juvenile Swallow

On De L’Orne flood at least seven young Shelduck chicks remained and as soon as the family group saw me the adults took off and for the next 25 minutes they flew around in such huge circles that it initially seemed like they had abandoned.  

I haven’t seen any Avocets for a week but today there was a family group of 2 adults and 3 fully grown juveniles on De L’Orne scrape. As I hadn’t seen these juvenile birds before I’m sure they were raised elsewhere. I then noticed that one of the adult birds was colour ringed – Green/Blue-Blue/Yellow. Graham confirmed that this Avocet was ringed at Needs Ore in 2014 and successfully nested at Normandy Marsh this summer. It appears that, just like the Needs Ore birds, this family group vacated their breeding site in mid-July.   

Graham later told me that this family group was seen at Titchfield Haven a week later. Graham commented that Titchfield is a site where lots of Hampshire Avocets go to complete their annual moult, prior to the adults heading to favored wintering sites and the juveniles wandering further afield.

I haven’t noticed any Peregrines since their nest was washed out but there was one today charging up the Beaulieu River. More post breeding gatherings with 20 Lapwing dropping down on to the Gins. Dimitri noticed a Broad-bodied Chaser land in an oak tree at just above head height.

Above and behind the chaser and just below the tree top there were at least three Purple Hairstreaks and one of them descended slightly lower for a better photo, albeit still distant. Purple Hairstreaks spend most of their time in the tree tops sipping honeydew, a sugary sticky liquid secreted by aphids. They can be overlooked because of this habit but if you spend a while below an oak tree on a warm calm day in July you may well see occasional dark grey butterflies flitting around and spiralling together but rarely descending very far.

Half way along the hedge to the hides a female Common Darter landed right in front of us.

I use a 600mm lens (or 840mm with a converter) for all my wildlife photography including insects. There are several benefits, firstly you have a really good working distance and so can get good size images standing a long way back from the insect, this can be handy on hot days when insects are difficult to approach. Secondly the long focal length acts to blur the background nicely and thirdly the much narrower field of field means that you can easily change your angle slightly to removing distracting elements from the background.

I noticed Stonechat juveniles at both the sluice gate and at the flight pond. Over the summer I’ve seen fledgling juvenile Stonechats from five different nests. I also counted my largest gathering of Linnets this year with 50 around the ringing area on Gravelly. Graham later ringed 14 juvenile Linnets in one session at the end of July confirming they’ve had a good year. Post breeding numbers build up to a peak in the autumn, I counted 100 near the point last September.

There were lots of dragonflies on the wing in very sunny conditions. Just where the track near Mary Monts house splits off to the private Gravelly Marsh areas I flushed a male Ruddy Darter but characteristically it returned to the same perch.

Not far from the Ruddy Darter I came across a pale brown adult grasshopper. The almost parallel pronotum, the pale colouration and the characteristic white line along the wing all indicated Lesser Marsh Grasshopper. One of our rarer grasshoppers this is amongst the best locations in the region for this species. I saw what I thought was an early instar a few days ago and so it was good to find a full adult resting nicely on an exposed leaf.

In one of the bays around the edge of Great Marsh there were very good numbers of Black-tailed Skimmers, at least 30 and a much larger male Emperor was investigating them before landing briefly. The lack of spots on the abdomen and a black line running down the abdomen are features only shown by Emperors in the UK.

male Emperor

Although not so obvious as the male Black-tailed Skimmers I saw my first female Black-tailed Skimmer of the year along the bushes adjoining the flight pond.

Perhaps the most vocal of the waders on Great Marsh were the three adult Greenshank who dashed about calling frequently. There have been 1 or 2 wintering Greenshank at Needs Ore but these three are probably all migrants. As I walked across the causeway at the eastern end of the flight pool I flushed two Green Sandpipers. They were silent but appeared to land 100 yards back along the splash. I doubled back but unfortunately couldn’t relocate them.

A newly arrived returning migrant bobbed excitedly on the far end of the scrape. Only my third Common Sandpiper at Needs Ore. This bird may be returning from Scotland, Wales or the north of England and it may winter along the south coast although most do head back to Africa.

One of the two juvenile Little Ringed Plover was associating with an adult Ringed Plover but I didn’t see the other juvenile or either of the adult birds. I counted four juvenile Redshanks. Compared to the adult birds their legs were yellower and the mantle and scapular feathers were neater and more uniform. I’ve spent months trying to find young redshank chicks with limited success and here were four fully grown individuals all together.

Particularly noticeable today were the large flocks of Starlings mainly juveniles which had gathered together and were charging around the reserve.

It was great to be buzzed by one of the UK’s largest insects, the Golden-ringed Dragonfly. They look surprisingly dark in flight although the yellow rings are just about visible as it dashes past. The female’s long ovipositor maker her the longest dragonfly in the UK.

Female Common Blue butterflies are usually brown with orange spots but they are variable and occasionally some individuals, like this one near the Pullen Hide, are much bluer.

Other butterflies today included a Painted Lady, Small Copper, Peacock, several Marbled Whites and lots of Gatekeepers and Meadow Browns. A very brief view of a small blue butterfly may well have been a Brown Argus but it disappeared before I could check it properly.