Today was a bit of an unusual day as I got to carry out one of the reserve WeBS counts as Jonny was away on holiday - its normally his patch.
We manage the reserve between the three of us wardens, we all have our own patch and we get to know it well throughout the breeding season as we carry out our monitoring work. Being out on our sites at least two days a week gives you a real insight into what is going on. You almost get to know the individual wader families and follow their highs and lows throughout the season. Every now and again though it is good to have a close look at a different part of the reserve with a pair of 'fresh eyes'. My normal patch is the marshes at Burnham Norton so it was nice to have a change of scene and look around Burnham Overy today.
To be honest, now that we are into June I wasn't expecting there to be many wildfowl and waders left to count for the WeBS, there wasn't, but that did give me an opportunity to have a look at how the breeding waders were getting on.
Since the beginning of the year we have been able to tweak the management on our sites to make improvements to habitat in favour of the waders. Nothing too drastic at this stage but by increasing water levels, introducing earlier grazing to get the sward in good condition and effective predator control, we have managed to increase breeding wader numbers across all of our sites - a great result but just the start.
Lots of muddy pools and rushy channels and footdrains have proved very successful and it was brilliant to see lots of chicks about on the marsh. These areas provide loads of insect food and cover from predators.
There were lapwing chicks that had just hatched complete with eggtooth still, half grown birds and several that had reached the fledging stage. After all the work we've all put in, seeing lots of young makes it all worthwhile.
It wasn't just lapwing there were plenty of redshank and avocet around the site too but you have to be careful about where you drive.
I spotted this adult redshank calling like mad in our of the causeways I needed to cross. Clearly it had young somewhere but where were they... I decided to walk the area before driving through and it was clear from their behaviour that there were chicks close by. All of a sudden I spotted one them hiding in some docks that were growing on the track I was following. The chick was frozen, hiding from the predator (me) as it was being told to by its parents. I picked it up, wished it well and moved to to the ditch edge where it vanished into the vegetation. Later in the morning I saw that same bird again with its 3 siblings.
The highlight of the day came when I was watching one of the breeding scrapes and noticed a group of 5 egrets flying in from the west. I assumed that they would be a group of adult little egrets heading back to the Holkham colony to feed their young when I realised that they had yellow beaks - they were cattle egrets! They came in over the the seawall, circled around couple of times and pitched in to the scrape I was watching. With the recent influx of birds into Norfolk it probably wasn't too surprising but it was rather unexpected. They sat around looking rather grumpy, as they often do, before moving into the herd of cows on the marsh. The Brancaster birds were still present so presumably these were new birds in...
The rest of the count was rather quiet but I did see a smart adult spoonbill and an early returning green sandpiper.
Just a few minor adjustments to the management of the reserve have made a big difference - great stuff.
We manage the reserve between the three of us wardens, we all have our own patch and we get to know it well throughout the breeding season as we carry out our monitoring work. Being out on our sites at least two days a week gives you a real insight into what is going on. You almost get to know the individual wader families and follow their highs and lows throughout the season. Every now and again though it is good to have a close look at a different part of the reserve with a pair of 'fresh eyes'. My normal patch is the marshes at Burnham Norton so it was nice to have a change of scene and look around Burnham Overy today.
To be honest, now that we are into June I wasn't expecting there to be many wildfowl and waders left to count for the WeBS, there wasn't, but that did give me an opportunity to have a look at how the breeding waders were getting on.
Since the beginning of the year we have been able to tweak the management on our sites to make improvements to habitat in favour of the waders. Nothing too drastic at this stage but by increasing water levels, introducing earlier grazing to get the sward in good condition and effective predator control, we have managed to increase breeding wader numbers across all of our sites - a great result but just the start.
Lots of muddy pools and rushy channels and footdrains have proved very successful and it was brilliant to see lots of chicks about on the marsh. These areas provide loads of insect food and cover from predators.
There were lapwing chicks that had just hatched complete with eggtooth still, half grown birds and several that had reached the fledging stage. After all the work we've all put in, seeing lots of young makes it all worthwhile.
It wasn't just lapwing there were plenty of redshank and avocet around the site too but you have to be careful about where you drive.
I spotted this adult redshank calling like mad in our of the causeways I needed to cross. Clearly it had young somewhere but where were they... I decided to walk the area before driving through and it was clear from their behaviour that there were chicks close by. All of a sudden I spotted one them hiding in some docks that were growing on the track I was following. The chick was frozen, hiding from the predator (me) as it was being told to by its parents. I picked it up, wished it well and moved to to the ditch edge where it vanished into the vegetation. Later in the morning I saw that same bird again with its 3 siblings.
The highlight of the day came when I was watching one of the breeding scrapes and noticed a group of 5 egrets flying in from the west. I assumed that they would be a group of adult little egrets heading back to the Holkham colony to feed their young when I realised that they had yellow beaks - they were cattle egrets! They came in over the the seawall, circled around couple of times and pitched in to the scrape I was watching. With the recent influx of birds into Norfolk it probably wasn't too surprising but it was rather unexpected. They sat around looking rather grumpy, as they often do, before moving into the herd of cows on the marsh. The Brancaster birds were still present so presumably these were new birds in...
The rest of the count was rather quiet but I did see a smart adult spoonbill and an early returning green sandpiper.
Just a few minor adjustments to the management of the reserve have made a big difference - great stuff.
