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| Teal - with 'Bill ring' |
Well maybe not a lot of pinging
but we found the beardies! Another beautiful day dawned for our
trip, a full minibus and our bake off champion Ann had made us a another
strudel cake for the journey
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| Blacktoft away team |
Blacktoft is the largest intertidal
reedbed in England and an important wildlife area in the Humber estuary. 474
acres of tidal reedbeds, saltmarsh, mudflats and brackish lagoons. The reserve
itself is easy to get round ad its linear, 3 hides to the left of the reception
hide first. Townend and Singleton, 3 to the right Xerox, Marshland and
Ousefleet.
On arrival at the reserve were greeted by small toadlets on
the path, and a stationary hare on the adjacent field. The tree sparrows were
on good form, hanging onto the reserves seed feeders.
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| Goldfinch on thistle |
A charm of goldfinches were picking over the thistle heads in front of the reception
hide, but alas no kingfisher.
We were advised by the warden the best place to see the beardies
was the Townend hide,
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| View from Townend Hide |
so we went
straight there, initial birds noted on
the mud and around the reed beds were blue tits, pied wagtails, reed warblers,
dunnock, reed bunting stock dove and
moorhens . Swallows swooped over the waters. The red arrows display team soared
over head as if to announce the arrival of the beardies, as shortly after they
started to flit around the bottom of the reed beds on the left.
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| Bearded tit |
Up to half a dozen were observed; closest view
was when a couple of adventurous birds came onto the mud for a drink, lovely.
Our first views of marsh harrier followed;
close enough to see its cream head plumage.
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| Marsh Harrier |
Mission accomplished we moved onto the other hides, at
the Marshland/Xerox hides we were treated to a further visits from a marsh harrier,
joined later by a buzzard. Other birds on the waters, reedbeds, around
the island muddy fringes were lapwing, pintail, little grebe,
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| Pristine ruff |
widgeon, mallard,
gadwall, shoveller, gt created grebe, wood pigeon, snipe, redshank, spotted redshank, starlings, ruff
and well spotted ‘Manu’ a water rail .
Butterflies and dragonflies roamed the reserve, speckled
wood, green veined white, small white, red admiral, tortoiseshell, emperor and migrant
hawkers dragonflies
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| Migrant hawker female |
At the Ouse fleet hide we added golden plover to our list
and our first gulls, common, herring, lesser and greater black back.
I must mention the Konik, these ponies graze their way through the reserve’s reedbed,
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| Konik ponies |
opening up new pools and channels that attract fish and amphibians, which in
turn, have provided a banquet for the reserve’s rare and secretive bitterns.
No bitterns today but we weren't disappointed.
We
ended the day with Chris and Arnie showing us the best way of getting over a barrier,
I’ll let you decide …
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| Steeplechaser Chris |
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Steady Eddie Arnie
|
Laura
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