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Upton Warren (25 Viewers)

Moors Pool

Pool 90 per cent frozen.
8 Shelduck and 1 Little Egret.
2 Redpoll and 1 male Siskin in alders opposite lifestyles.
 
Foxes

Pic of the foxes on the Flashes last Friday. Hopefully the repairs by the Sunday work party will keep them out. Thanks to all for their efforts.
Hope the cakes were nice!:t:
 

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Pool 90 per cent frozen.
8 Shelduck and 1 Little Egret.
2 Redpoll and 1 male Siskin in alders opposite lifestyles.

Thanks Alan , Steve (Spike) has texted me with his sightings which include 10 curlew , 4 gadwall, a pochard , kestrel and a couple of water rail as well as the shelduck and little egret.:t:
 
Tuesday's MOORS work party

Pic of the foxes on the Flashes last Friday. Hopefully the repairs by the Sunday work party will keep them out. Thanks to all for their efforts.
Hope the cakes were nice!:t:

Bob we will have to check out the east bank for the presence of the pair of foxes and repair the hole/s.
I have also been reminded, that the 1st Tuesday in the month is also 'cake day'. Served after the work, so no turning up and eating cake and doing a 'runner' 8-P:smoke:.
Weather looks good, so we should be able to finish off the willows and start to move shingle - at a relaxed pace,;) as we have a good bit of time to spare.

Once again to the non-participants, tomorrow will be busy. The Electrical Power supply company will be placing 'deflectors' on the overhead cables in the SW Marsh. So apologies for any inconvenience to your days birding.B :)
 
Mike - in answer to your question about what Shoveler numbers are required to be a site of national importance, currently its the rather precise figure of 148.

Gone up by around 50% from the required figure about 20-25 years ago.

Edit- just seen John's post in response to this, so perhaps not quite such a large increase.
 
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Mike worked on that project so I will let him respond; my thought was that we need the water level lower to make a proper job of it.

Checked the line from the hide north to where it enters the water. Nothing obvious other than the two areas Phil had marked, although the nearer of the two was about 4 feet rather than the small hole we initially thought.

There were also another three or four areas on the east side that needed cable-tying as the two pieces of narrow-gauge fencing (top and bottom) had come apart. Only 12-18 inch areas, but plenty big enough for a fox once it had negotiated the stock-fencing.
 
We were sat in the West Hide. The foxes appeared relatively close to the hide in the south west (scent marking) before making their way around the marsh. After a few minutes they appeared south of the East Hide on the bank before running straight in front of the hide; we lost where they went after that.

The shooting was close; it was either in and around Hobden Hall Farm buildings or the shoreline of the Sailing Pool.

Didn't have a chance to look properly at the North Moors work; will give you my verdict next Sunday when I am down for the WeBS count.

I thought the shooting came from the field immediately east of the Sailing Pool, although well out of sight from the west hide. Perhaps trying to get geese off the field further to the east?
 
Trampled mesh pulled up and cable tied to guide wires. Top part also pulled down and cabled tied. New mesh then overlaid on damaged section .... cable tied. whoever invested then deserves a medal!

I presume the English translation is - 'Whoever invented them deserves a medal' |:S|

Although I guess if you invested in them you'd probably be pretty chuffed
 
Pic of the foxes on the Flashes last Friday. Hopefully the repairs by the Sunday work party will keep them out. Thanks to all for their efforts.
Hope the cakes were nice!:t:

Awww they were in the field behind my house today :) Spent about half an hour photographing them, one headed towards the field behind the flashes the other is still in the original field.
Love foxes :)
 
Today's work party at MOORS

There were plenty of tasks sorted today.
The main task was clearing the view from the Jacobs hide looking north.

The scrubland between the two west hides has grown leggy and obscured the the view over the reed beds and the northern half of the pool.
Today we pruned some sections of the area and leyered others, this will give us a mosaic of habitat and structural diversity. Attracting a range of breeding and feeding passerines. Much of the brash was piled up against the soil mound on the hedgerow side (Photo 1 before and 2 after the work)

Peter E and Bobby P checked out and cleaned out the bird boxes.

The Salwarp scrub, is being shaded out by willows , today several large trunks along with the hundreds of attached year old shoots were removed.
(photo 3)

Several willows along the west side of the causeway were coppiced and a small willow 'hurdle' was created in the middle section on the North Moors side. This will allow views over the NM.

Many thanks to the 13 of us, on what was a very cold day - hopefully in the inaugural 1st Tuesday in the month 'cake day' went well:eat:
The Crew
Paul M, Bobby O, Bobby P, Bobby R, Peter E, John C, Janet, Jim, Terry W, Roger, Charles, Neil and meB :) thanks everyone
 

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Birding at the Moors today,

The overnight frost had closed up 90+% of the pool. Luckily there were three open areas to keep most of the waterfowl that were present yesterday.
With disturbance from the power company's engineers in the SW marsh, I was worried that all the duck would fly out of the two open areas close-by. But luckily they all moved on to the open area off shore from the Bittern channel. When the engineers departed the ducks returned to their respective feeding areas. For the last 2 hours until dark, I birded from the East hide. The open water areas were expanding all the time, which was strange as it was getting colder all the time. Bird of the day were the numerous water rails, which probably as a result of the freeze up were extremely tame. One even walking between two cars parked behind the concrete hide. Three were all feeding in the open in the cut reeds at the start of the west track.

SPECIES COUNT MOORS:
GCG 2, little grebe 4, little egret, greylag 26, mute swan pr, cormorant 2, shoveler 50 (including a dead male on the north shore of the main shingle island), Teal 80, shelduck 8, (2 prs + 4 males), mallard 50+, pochard 3 males, tufted 18 - 20, coot 260, water rail 15, snipe 25, curlew 11, common gull ad, stock dove, collared dove, fieldfare 20+, mistle thrush singing west side, cettis w poss 3 singing, pied wags 5 roosted in reeds next to bittern channel, reed bunting c12 at feeding station.

North Moors
although completely iced over, two snipe and a teal did come out of the new channel by the scrape
 
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Other activities on the reserve also included the Electricity Power supply engineers fitting deflectors on the cables above the SW marsh. They had to break through the ice and fair play to them for their perseverance, a great job done.:t:
 

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water rail today.
This one was 12 feet below the gate at the beginning of the west track.
1. the water rail
2. this area had 3 at one time
 

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Disticnct feeding zones

Today's three open areas appeared to be holding different species in each of them.
In the NW corner area A, was dominated by all the reserve's coots, gathered in tight feeding groups. Many bringing what appeared to be blanket weed to the surface. Also here were all 3 pochard 14 of the 18 tufted, the pair of mute swan, both GCG's and a little grebe. But only very few of the shoveler flock fed here.

Area B - was around the main shingle island, running to the lagoon and pool island. Here the dominant species was the shoveler with 44 of the 50 feeding in their gyrating motion. 6 of the 8 shelduck were also feeding here, only 4 of the tufted and a few teal.

Area C The smallest open water was the hook and the area up to the snipe island, all in front of the east hide. Here 2 shelduck, most of the teal and 3 of the 4 little grebe fed. snipe and water rail also fed on the near shore.

From the species found in each area it is clear that the Moors has distinct feeding zones. These come about, most likely due to the depth of water. Also the substrate in these areas is possibly also different. Area A is the deepest and oldest section of the pool and therefore has a more established aquatic flora and associated invertebrates and fish stocks.
Area B is an area that has changed over the last 20 years. The southern end was previously part of a field, that was later scraped off to form islands some of which have eroded and disappeared. It is therefore possible that the eroded islands have created a unique silt bed, that provides enough invertebrates for shoveler to favour this area.
Area C the area below the hide was also part of a field 20 odd years ago. Strangely over the last few years it never freezes - something we are not quite sure why. But one obvious feature is the plethora of small fish found here, that attracts kingfisher, little egrets and regularly little grebes. But it is also very attractive to teal, which dabble along the shore lines and island edges.
pics
1. Area A
2. Area B top of the picture
3. Area C
Another observation from today was of a territorial pair of winter plumaged little grebes in Area C. This pair were regularly trilling and attacking a summer plumaged little grebe. When it came close it was chased and severely beaten with bites to its neck even when under water.After several bouts of this the victim flew and landed between a pair of shelduck and sat there, the assailants backed off and left it alone thereafter. All in a days birding at the Mecca.
 

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At about 8:15 tonight I was driving down the A38 past the moors and a lovely barn owl flew out of the field behind the conc hide.
 

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