Sunday 12 July 2015

Linacre WeBS - July 2015

The monthly WeBS count is due next weekend, but I'm not available, so I went down to do it this morning. I arrived at 7am, and walked around all 3 reservoirs for a couple of hours, recording good numbers of adult and young birds, including a ringed Mandarin Duck!

Mandarin Duck

The ringed bird was an adult female that was on the overflow on the middle reservoir with 5 young. Unfortunately, I couldn't read the ring number, but given we've only ever ringed Mandarins in the nest boxes at Linacre, I'm pretty sure it is one of "ours". Obviously, she could be from elsewhere, but, without the ring number, I can't be sure, so I'll have to either get a much better picture next time, or retrap her in the boxes next year!

Birds recorded this month were: Mallard (67; 64 adults and 3 ducklings), Mandarin Duck (17; 3 females with broods of 5, 5 and 4), Tufted Duck (23; 17 adults, including 1 female with a brood of 6 young), Moorhen (11; 5 adults and 6 juveniles), Coot (22; 11 adults and 11 juveniles), Grey Wagtail (8; 2 family parties of 2 adults and 2 juveniles) and Cormorant (1 flying over the top reservoir). Unfortunately, no grebes again. There were 2 pairs of Great-crested Grebe earlier in the season, but they both seem to have failed this year, and there's only been 2 records of Little Grebe this year!!

The woodlands were quite quiet today, but juvenile Blackbirds and Robins were seen, along with 3 singing Chiffchaffs, and a couple of singing Blackcaps. A male Whitethroat was seen with nesting materials in its mouth entering brambles in the ringing area, and a Tawny Owl flew out of a tree near the feeding station first thing. 4 Swallows and 1 House Martin were flying over the fields by the main entrance.

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