Last Wednesday's bike ride turned into a time trial rather than a nature watch but a visit from Malcolm gave the opportunity to make a couple of excursions into birdland.
On Friday we decided on an evening trip to the Ken Dee Marshes Reserve, my personal agenda being the continuing pursuit of summer visitors as well as the chance for Malcolm to see things he hasn't encountered before. I was also hoping that an evening visit might be more productive than the last couple of late morning sessions.
Frankly, the reserve proved somewhat frugal in revealing its potential. A possible explanation was the large colony of nesting black-headed gulls that have colonised the islands between the two main hides. Noticeably there was not much non-gull life out on the lagoon apart from a couple of sunbathing tourists on the far bank of Loch Ken. Remarks in the logbook suggested that other species are not best mates with black-headed gulls.
The feeders did at least attract male and female woodpeckers, a great tit and eventually a rather pale looking nuthatch, presumably a female.
On the way to and back from the second hide, I did at least manage to identify a spotted flycatcher emerging from the nesting boxes. Of redstart there was (as ever at this location) no visible sign and we did not hear the wood warbler singing, though we did both have the experience of thinking that birds emerging from nesting boxes looked too yellow to be flycatchers. Surely not?.. More likely to have been blue tits.
As last year even pied flycatcher seemed to be a bit of an isolated experience rather than the frequent one encountered in past years. ON the feeder at the now somewhat dilapidated hide, woodpecker and nuthatch duly reappeared.
There wasn't anything else on the way back to the car park, where a singing song thrush displaying clearly at the top of a nearby tree kind of ironised the whole experience.
Showing posts with label pied flycatcher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pied flycatcher. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 June 2016
Saturday, 23 May 2015
Saturday 23rd May
Yesterday took a trip to Ken Dee Marshes Reserve with my sister Hilary, and had some resonable luck in seeing one or two things that were new for her.
Having pursued a couple of bullfinches on the road to the reserve, we quickly saw some kites and two or three lapwings displaying, which again surprised me. But Hilary thinks they may have been trying to scare off intruders from an area where they had already nested.
Approaching a wooded area, there was a consistent grumbling from the bushes, which I was able to attribute to a sole sedge warbler, a bit of a bonus sighting but one she hadn't experienced.
Further along we agreed on a fleeting sighting of a female blackcap, which however we both saw, plus a few willow warblers, which were around at most places we sampled.
In the middle hide, a nuthatch quickly turned up on the left feeder before we concentrated on trying to identify some of the ducks on the loch, some of the mallards not for a while appearing very mallard-like at a distance. Then, to my delight a willow tit turned up a few times on the middle feeder, and I even managed a brief video of it (plus background music from a colony of black-headed gulls). This was only my second willow tit sighting and I don't think Hilary appreciated how seldom they are seen these days.
Next we visited the main area for pied flycatchers with the various nesting boxes and did manage to see four or five birds fleetingly, although it was a touch disappointing in that visits to the boxes were infrequent and we could not get very clear views of any individual birds.
In the furthest hide another nuthatch turned up on the feeder, followed by various tit visits including several more from willow tits, some long-tailed tits in the background and eventually a greater spotted woodpecker. Apparently there were some garden warblers around but we didn't find them. In the meantime we managed to pick out a shoveler on the loch and agreed that there had been one or two amongst the earlier mallards.
On the way home there were several more red kites, including one very good view of one perching in a tree. Hilary says they perch when they are starting to nest.
One feature of trips with her is definitely that four eyes are better than two. It makes you wonder how mch you miss when you are out alone.
Having pursued a couple of bullfinches on the road to the reserve, we quickly saw some kites and two or three lapwings displaying, which again surprised me. But Hilary thinks they may have been trying to scare off intruders from an area where they had already nested.
Approaching a wooded area, there was a consistent grumbling from the bushes, which I was able to attribute to a sole sedge warbler, a bit of a bonus sighting but one she hadn't experienced.
Further along we agreed on a fleeting sighting of a female blackcap, which however we both saw, plus a few willow warblers, which were around at most places we sampled.
In the middle hide, a nuthatch quickly turned up on the left feeder before we concentrated on trying to identify some of the ducks on the loch, some of the mallards not for a while appearing very mallard-like at a distance. Then, to my delight a willow tit turned up a few times on the middle feeder, and I even managed a brief video of it (plus background music from a colony of black-headed gulls). This was only my second willow tit sighting and I don't think Hilary appreciated how seldom they are seen these days.
Next we visited the main area for pied flycatchers with the various nesting boxes and did manage to see four or five birds fleetingly, although it was a touch disappointing in that visits to the boxes were infrequent and we could not get very clear views of any individual birds.
In the furthest hide another nuthatch turned up on the feeder, followed by various tit visits including several more from willow tits, some long-tailed tits in the background and eventually a greater spotted woodpecker. Apparently there were some garden warblers around but we didn't find them. In the meantime we managed to pick out a shoveler on the loch and agreed that there had been one or two amongst the earlier mallards.
On the way home there were several more red kites, including one very good view of one perching in a tree. Hilary says they perch when they are starting to nest.
One feature of trips with her is definitely that four eyes are better than two. It makes you wonder how mch you miss when you are out alone.
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