Yesterday I went down to Linacre to meet up with some of the regular Severn Trent volunteers (thanks everyone, it was great to meet you all). One of the volunteers shared photos of 2 caterpillars that had been found on site. One was a Pale Tussock and the other was an Elephant Hawk-moth. Both species were new records for the site.
Whilst there, we had a first check in the "owl boxes", and found that 3 of the 5 were in use, albeit not by owls!! As usual, the 3 boxes all contained Mandarin Duck eggs, including 1 with at least 38(!) eggs in it - a classic example of "egg dumping" by several different females. The other 2 contained just 3 and 4 eggs. None of the broods were being incubated yet. Several pairs of Blue Tits were seen entering nestboxes, so it seems that the the breeding season is beginning in earnest.
After the nestboxes, I had a quick walk around the middle and top reservoirs, and spotted my first Swallows (6), House Martins (2) and Sand Martins (2) of 2021.
Other species seen were: Kestrel (1 male hunting below the top reservoir - my first Linacre record of 2021), Raven (2 over the bottom reservoir), Grey Heron (1, my first Linacre record of 2021) and Sparrowhawk (1 female).
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