RXwildlife Sightings

Just in case you did not manage a visit this month, here is some video that captured some highlights. Look out towards the end for some amazing Cormorant chick feeding behaviour and a cute brood of 4 young Lapwing chicks.

Sharp-eyed readers will recognize that the seeds here do not come from sunflowers; the image comes from a recent expedition to Googleland.
The female Siskin which spent a day feeding on sunflower seeds in our garden this week was no doubt a migrant on its way up to northern conifer forests.
Until a couple of years ago, I used to assume that all April Siskins around here were likewise transient until it was pointed out to me that they are early nesters - from the beginning of the month - and that those in local pinewoods could well be breeding.
While carrying out Atlas visits over the last fortnight I’ve come across Siskins in suitable habitat at 3 sites. At the first, a few were just flying about (hard to draw conclusions) but at another a male was singing (but they do sing on migration, the flocks often conspicuous for their buzzing and fizzing) and at the third, a single bird was making anxious noises (but in a typical nest-site at the top of a tall Scots Pine: hard to see what was going on).
If Siskins appear in your garden from now on, it would be worth having a closer look to check if there are juveniles amongst them.

Highlight this morning was a male Hen Harrier being chased by Lapwings and Oystercatchers over Flat Beach and then Shore Ridges. Sightings of Hen Harriers, male or ringtail, have been scant over recent years on the reserve, normally the winter months providing the best chance. So to end last week with a ringtail over Shore Ridges and start the week with a superb male has been fantastic, I wish I could see where they end up this summer.

A perfect sunday morning yesterday to have a walk around Guestling woods, the carpet of Bluebells (with the odd white one) are at their best at the moment. The small pools at the bottom of the wood were checked for emerging Large Red Damselfly, several preflight emergents were found with exuvia nearby (pictured) plus evidence of a larger emergence recently with 20 exuviae being collected in a short time. The set aside margins of the nearby arable fields were also of interest with red-headed Cardinal Beetle (pictured), Dotted-bee Fly, Orange-tip, Peacock and Large Red Damselflies.

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I have been monitoring the annual survival of this rare plant at Northiam for four years now in an attempt to understand what restricts the distribution of the plant in Britain.  Observations over the past year have been particularly informative.

The past two summers have been very wet, and have coincided with very poor survival of germinating seedlings.  Only 50 survived in 2007 on a limestone bed that has been regularly monitored, whereas in 2008 only 22 were found.  In the preceeding years thousands of plants had been found in this area  and back in November I was wondering if the population might be on a steady track towards extinction.

The past winter, however, has seen remarkably good Read the rest of this entry »

A count of the Whimbrel roost on the Quarry this morning recorded 62 leaving the roost (the first at about 5am), though it is stil early days yet. Also early this morning two Greenshank were on the new pits behind Ternery Pool, while three Black-tailed Godwit flew over the Beach Reserve and three Bar-tailed Godwit were feeding on the shore. Later on small numbers of Swallow and Sand Martin moved through, 20 Avocet and a Little Ringed Plover were present on the new pit near Harbour Farm Barns and at least one Cuckoo was seen and heard around Narrow Pit.

Last year I started recording the success of our garden nest boxes and submitting the data to the BTO.  The idea is to record the details of each nest box, note the if was used by birds, the numbers of eggs laid in each, the number hatching and the number successfully fledging. This will help show how successfully these birds are able to breed in suburban habitats.

This year we have two nest boxes being used, one by blue tits, the other by house sparrows.  Our 5 house sparrow eggs have already hatched, in their rather untidy nest. In contrast the blue tits are still laying eggs (11 to date).  Their more tidy nest is made partly of moss, and topped with the copious amounts of fur obtained from our moulting french lop rabbit.  Interestingly these birds seem to lay one egg a day, and have been doing this over a period of 11 days.  It will be interesting to see how staggered the resulting chicks are in terms of hatching.

When the mother leaves the nest she carefully pulls the layer of rabbit fur over the eggs to keep them warm, and it is surprising how infrequently she actually is found incubating the eggs.

At Easter a visitor enjoyed Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, a guided walk and Camber Castle so much that she wrote about it and won a competition in the Daily Telegraph. Click here to read it.

Although not the first to be reported locally, this Small Copper was on the wing at Rolvendene Farm near Rye today, plus another nearby in Rye Cemetery. Holly Blues are now widespread but I’ve yet to see any Green Hairstreaks despite searching in likely places. As for dragonflies, yesterday there was another Broad-bodied Chaser near Playden church and Large Red Damselflies are now widespread. Next to emerge should be the first Four-spotted Chasers, Banded Demoiselles, Blue-tailed and Azure Damselflies.

The day started well with 14 greenshanks seen from Makepeace hide, three Sandwich terns over Burrowes pit, a cuckoo calling from Christmas Dell and a blue-headed wagtail on the bank near Firth hide. A drake garganey was on Denge Marsh and a bittern was at Hooker’s pits. Hobby, whimbrel, little ringed plover and little tern were also of note.