June & July - The Upton Warren roundup

June & July 2014

With the grip of the summer doldrums in place, birding took a far more relaxing approach, and with that came a fair bit of local general wildlife watching, navigating across from our avian delights, to our inverts, and to our plantlife, and I rather enjoyed it.

Upton Warren I look as one of the most productive, and educational sites in Worcester, and what better to do during the quiet summer months than keep track of the breeding birds, and enthuse about them to locals and semi-interested day visitors!

The major news from this summer at Upton Warren has been the successful hatching, and subsequent raising of a massive 10 Shoveler chicks, the first time the species has bred at Upton Warren since 1947. A truly remarkable occurrence, and hopefully this years bumper success will promote breeding in future years.

It is still even possible to see these local superstars (which made local newspapers, radio shows and possibly even the local TV news) as I write this in the dying days of August. They may even stay around for the rest of the winter now?

As always, the first returning waders of the year are making an appearance, and Green Sandpipers were typically on time, with some spanking adults dropping in for extended stays on the flashes, often showing superbly from the hide. In the two 'J' months, I had a peak count of 10, but this increased further in August which will be covered in an upcoming post.

For the 3rd year running a ringed Common Sandpiper made an appearance for a few days, showing how site faithful some species can be, particularly waders!

And the first few Common Snipe started to appear in the channels adjacent to the hide at the flashes, typically showing well out in the open as migrant birds often do.

 A juvenile Ringed Plover dropped into the flashes in front of me one evening, which proved incredibly productive!

It could often be see within the same scope view as a number of Little Ringed Plover, but sadly all of these were raised elsewhere, with all the earlier chicks having been predated.

Wader wise my personal counts peaked at, Avocets- 45, Little Ringed Plovers-8 and Common Sands- 5 and up to 21 Curlew. Oystercatcher raised 4 chicks and Lapwing were also present, but Lapwing being quite scarce and hard to come by, but occasional counts of up to 30 were seen as the autumn flock built up.

Gulls have been high on the agenda, and there has been an almost continual presence of Mediterranean Gulls throughout the summer as a few 1st summer birds have been loitering around with the Black-headed Gulls. The Little Gull remained for some time also, but had disappeared by mid July.

Towards the end of July, I was lucky enough to locate the first juvenile 'Med' Gull of the year in the flashes roost, on the same evening as the Ringed Plover. The roost also held 2 2nd summer Common Gulls that night, so I certainly was kept entertained. 

Away from birds, it was a very poor year for Orchids around the site, with only 2/3 Bee Orchids flowering, and around 30c Common Spotted. Pyramidal was unfortunately not see this year, but it is quite normal for Orchids to flower in some years and not the next.

My undoubted butterfly highlight were 2 White-letter Hairstreaks that were present when I looked adjacent a small colony of them. A recent colonist to the reserve and a pleasure to see.

MB

Patching comes up trumps!

2/08/13

Another patch visit, and another Mandarin count. I wanted to get out fairly early, and i did, so i was out scouring those hedges and tree's looking for some migrants. The first bird i came across was while standing adjacent to the old Sand Martin colony on the riverbank (now sadly unused) and i saw the distinctive flight shape of a Falcon approaching from the north. With its barrel chested-ness and heavy flight it was obvious a PEREGRINE was flying towards me, easily the rarest of the 'common' Falcons here on patch. Soon after i was treated to great views of this 1st summer male bird as it flew low over my head, across the river, dropping down low over the fields opposite, to suddenly rise up over the hedge to spook a flock of Woodpigeon before giving a pot-shot, and to be honest, half soaked lazy attempt at that, towards one of the Woodpigeons. Soon after the bird was lost to view, but a nice addition to the list.

Just a little further upriver, adjacent to the riverside field infact, and, for the 2nd time in 8 days, i heard a familiar 'glipping' sound above me, Looking up to see a party of 3 CROSSBILL flying along the river SW. I wont repeat from what i said a couple of posts ago, but this is still a very decent patch bird with very few records!

Moving onto Blackstone, i quickly found a variety of good birds, a LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER was seen briefly making its way through the dense tree's, the first patch record this year! And it was while trying to relocate the Woodpecker i heard the distinctive song and 'Pitchoo' call of MARSH TIT'S, a welcomed sighting as i had not seen any at this location  since the spring!

The expected flock of Mandarins had dropped significantly, with now only 7 birds remaining, 4 of which were drakes. The party of young that were first hatched have now disbanded and are now practically independent. 

The final highlight of the day was the confirmation that a pair of Lapwings had successfully raised 2 chicks at a site on patch! As far as i know, the first confirmed breeding for a few years, despite a semi-regular presence during the summer in previous years. The two adults and 2 fledged youngsters sitting together on an area of bare ground.

In the garden, both male and female Siskin have been present all summer, so it was fully expected when 3 newly fledged juveniles visited the feeders for around a month, however, more recently we have been visited by something larger...

A family party of Great-Spots!

But one of the most unexpected sights was to happen on the 3/08/13, when a WHITE-LETTER HAIRSTREAK visited the garden briefly, a butterfly lifer!

MB