A pair of Ringed Plover has decided that just in front of the Crittall Hide at Ternery Pool is a good place to nest. These 4 photos were all taken within a 90 second period today.
The male (top) made a nest “scrape” and called the female over to try it for size, while he called and covered her with his fanned tail.
Sunday 14th June 09, 7am to 12noon. It was raining at first, with patchey sea mist out to sea, the tide was just started to go down. The Wader Pool was quite active with moulting Gadwall, Mallard,with a few Teal. Other birds on the pool were 3 B.T.Godwits, 40 Lapwings,12 Curlew ( on the fields behind the pool) 6 Little Egrets, 2 Herons. On the next eastern pool, I counted a brood of nine young Shelducks, with the two adults birds, they were swimming from one side of the pool to the other and back again, which took about 45 minutes and within that time, the pair had lost 5 of their young, probably due to Herons? Another interesting thing I watched was a male Kestrel sitting on top of flag pole on the sea wall, before he dropped off the pole and caught what looked like a Shrew or a Vole, but instead of flying off to a near by place to deal with it , it flew off east towards Camber Castle, so it got me thinking how far dose a bird like that fly in a hunting trip?. The only other birds of note were 3 Ravens of the Pools and a distant Hobby on a fence post plus a Barn Owl, Good birdwatching Pete.
Fancy getting involved with a bit of butterfly recording in Sussex this summer? Then you may be interested to hear about the Big Biodiversity Butterfly Count which is taking place between 4th and 12th July: