We were promised sunshine for the weekend but, true to form, saturday ans sunday both started with the familiar grey. I decided to make an early start on saturday and was on my way to Elmley by 5.15.
A couple of song thrushes had been victims of the road, one was squished badly but the other was intact other than the gaping wound in the left side. I can't resist a bit of study when the opportunity presents itself so the pathetic, nearly still warm corpse went into a bag for later drawing.
The farm buildings at the entrance to the estate are crowded with starlings now, every gutter, roofline and fence is fully loaded with chattering juveniles and their hard worked parents. A brace of red legged partridge scampered off the road at the entrance, soon vanishing into the high grass. The predominant sound of the first part of the reserve currently seems to be the joyful song of the skylarks which are thankfully plentiful there and their loud, confident singing proclaimed the summer despite the less than summery weather. Another welcome sound was the surreal drumming of the snipe which nest among the dykes and scrapes by the road. Their creaky wheelbarrow 'song' can easily be picked out too but the birds are less easily seen on the ground, although with luck and a bit of patience some great views can be achieved.
Sparrows, pied wags, blackbirds, starlings and swallows were all busy in the car park, a frenzy of feeding. A quick look at the boxes behind the loos revealed the barn owl peering briefly back at me but there was no sign of the little owls, although, with the leaves making things easy for them, they are probably there but hidden.
The walk out was accompanied by the usual collection of corn buntings, yellow wags, pipits and the distant hunting marsh harriers. A particularly vociferous reed bunting presented himself as a great model so it would have been rude not to make a couple of sketches.
On the scrape itself the avocets still held sway, although the numbers of adults seemed less, there were plenty of chicks playing in the mud. A creche of 17 or so shelducklings were watched over by two or three adults and the adult avocets weren't impressed! There was much chasing of the poor ducklings with the avocets determinedly trying to rid the water of the threatening little balls of fluff. A barnacle goose was present with a partner that seemed to be some kind of hybrid, it had a pretty much white head and darker grey feathers on the back than barnacle should have. Maybe some bar headed goose in the genes there.
I know that Tim is the master of the shelduck sketch so it's with a certain trepidation that I post my sketches. I was struggling with the shapes at first but I think I got into my stride after a while. Some avocets are still mating, some are still on eggs and some are herding tiny chicks around so I couldn't resist another nest sketch and a whole sheet of quick gesture sketches, trying to get the birds down with as few marks as possible.
On sunday, once back home with coffee in the conservatory, the sun came out and the day was bright and warm. My feeders were emptied by the hoards of sparrows with their little'uns while the starlings and woodpigeons cleared the grass below. My blackbird is still regular and he made me smile with a bit of a comedy run along the ridgetiles of the neighbours' house so I broke from the songthrush study for a couple of quick sketches.
This is turning into a bit of a blog these days so perhaps it's time I started a proper, seperate blog, I'll give it some thought. Anyway here are the sketches from the weekend.
Mike