Waterbirds everywhere

Now that moat is brimful of water the birds are back. First of all a healthy number of moorhens - there seem to be eight. If they all stay and breed that's as many breeding pairs the moat can support as far as I can tell. It would also hopefully mean loads of moorhen chicks -always entertaining. Next there are nine mallards - again stacks of ducklings if they stay. At one point all seventeen birds were on the same patch of lawn. One duck briefly broke off from their usual attitude of studiously ignoring the moorhens to chase one away. Finally the best of the lot - a kingfisher is baack. I had the privilege of watching it dive and come up with a stickleback and then to watch it eat the fish on a perch on the bank. The kingfisher was back twice the next day so it is looking like it may be coming regularly. I note that I last saw a kingfisher in October but I was chatting to someone who spotted it over the moat twice in December. All we need is a visit from the heron and we will have the complete set.

It's been a while...

I was going to blog about the last of the butterflies and dragonflies enjoying the autumnal sunshine but then I saw something I hadn't spotted for about two years - a kingfisher. No photograph I'm afraid - it didn't hang around to have it's picture taken. I saw it on the stream and was wondering whether it had been checking out the moat for sticklebacks as I hadn't seen any sticklebacks since the drought reduced water levels so much. Hey presto I went over to the moat and found sticklebacks. I fished out three in the space of a minute or so so I think there are a reasonable number in there.

Latest ducklings

Not in their earliest fluffiness but these eight ducklings are at the 'diving' stage which is very comical. They seem to set each other off as one by one they dive underwater and then bob up again a few seconds later. They seem to be spending time on the moat unlike earlier broods who mainly moved off elsewhere.

And now it's mallard central too...

Just the day after reporting that we seemed to have stacks of moorhens for the first time in a while, today it was mallards overrunning the place. As I have reported previously we had some broods of ducklings earlier in the year that didn't stay around. Their mothers took them off - probably because there wasn't much water in the moat. However today two sets of ducklings (almost fully grown) returned with mother so we had around 25 mallards from those two groups. In addition we have the duck plus one duckling born around a week ago and tonight I spotted a group of about eight newly hatched ducklings. That makes getting on for forty mallards on the moat and probably takes us over 50 for ducklings hatched this year. One more brood and 2012 could be a record year. The picture is of one group of 'ducklings' sleeping on the lawn.

Moorhens

It's been a miserable year for a lot of wildlife but the moorhens are having a good year - so far. A brood of six chicks has been born recently and at lease five or six juveniles seem to have made it through from earlier broods so there is quite a throng of them at the moment. As they are the most entertaining birds I know it is gratifying to see so many. All three generations were on the lawn today with five juveniles and most of the chicks plus an adult. The adult was showing them all how to steal potatoes from the vegetable patch so I went out and dug up the remaining ones and they had to content themselves with eating whatever it was I had uncovered. There has also been a new single duckling but it is keeping a fairly low profile. The picture shows one adult four juveniles and three chicks on the lawn.

Waxcaps on the lawn

Having left the lawn uncut for a couple of weeks during which a lot of rain fell I came back from holiday to find the lawn covered in waxcaps, one of the blackening species. From my fungi book I would have said it was Hygrocybe tristis or Hygrocybe conica var tristis as some sources have it

but the whole taxonomy of waxcaps seems a difficult area so I am not sure.

Butterflies

Is has been a terrible year for butterflies although there were unusually large numbers of Orange Tips earlier in the year (mostly before the rain started). Today it warmed up a bit despite it being damp and there were five species trying to make the most of a day when it wasn't too wet or windy. Pictured here is a Comma (one of several on the wing) and I also saw Meadow Browns, Ringlets, a Red Admiral and a Large? White.