Wyver Lane Nature Reserve (DWT) (1 Viewer)

Not often I manage to get down Wyver at weekends but I thought i'd pop down for a few hours today. Literally 100's of Housemartins and a some Swallows feeding around the reserve plus a single Swift. I was thinking that with all the Hirundine activity I might get a Hobby but had to settle for a Buzzard, Sparrowhawk and Kestrel.

Lots of Mallards plus two Shoveler, Tufted Duck and a few Teal. 3 Grey Herons, 3 Cormorants with one catching many fish in front of the hide including a Perch. 200+ Lapwings. A small flock of Long-tailed Tits around the hide plus a Willow/Chiff. A possible Meadow Pipit over and 2 Stock Doves.

Popped down for an hour this afternoon. I wasn't really birding as I had the family with me but did see 15+ Teal, 15 BH Gulls, 10 Swallows, Shoveler, Goosander, lots of Mallards and several Grey Herons and Cormorants.

Wyver Lane Bird Notes August 2009

Wildfowl counts for August include 3 Gadwall on 13th and a female most of the month, 3 'redhead' Goosander flew up river on 25th and a single 'redhead' on 31st, c20 Teal on 25th, 2 Shoveler on 29th and 3 female/juvenile Mandarin on 25th, 50+ Mallards on 29th, c50 Greylag Geese on 3rd. A single Little Grebe has been present on and off throughout the month.

An Osprey gave excellent views on 4th as it unsuccessfully made three attempts at catching a fish. The bird was around the reserve for around 20 minutes and eventually flew off west after catching the attention of a Crow. This is only one of a handful of records of Osprey for Wyver Lane and could well be the only record of a bird actually fishing here. The sighting also coincided with several other sightings in the county in early August. On the 11th, 4 Sparrowhawks were seen together and prior to this, young were heard calling from a known nestsite nearby. Buzzard sightings have been regular all month with 2 to 3 birds seen almost daily but 4 were seen on 25th.
A Hobby was seen on 17th.

With water levels being high all month the only species of Wader was Lapwing which were often found in the surrounding fields with 250 most days and c300 on 1st. An adult and a juvenile Common Tern were present on 5th and a probable Common Tern on 7th.

Several Willow/Chiffs have been feeding up along the lane including a Chiff Chaff in song on 25th, a Whitethroat on 25th and a Lesser Whitethroat on 11th.

16 Long Tailed Tits were counted on 11th, also 6 juvenile Coal Tits on 11th. 100's of Housemartins were feeding around the reserve on 29th and 15 Swallows on 31st, 4 Swifts on 25th a single Swift on the 29th could well be the last record until next year. A Green Woodpecker has been seen or heard most days, as has a Kingfisher. 3 Grey Herons on 13th and 29th, 3 Cormorants on 29th and 4 Stock Doves on 4th and 25th.

Wyver Lane today produced 40 Teal, 4 Shoveler, Mandarin, Little Grebe, 3 Cormorants, 2 Grey Herons, Green Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, 2 Stock Doves, 4 Mistle Thrush, 6 Lesser Black Backed Gulls, 70 Mallards, 200+ Lapwings, Snipe, 2 Buzzards, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, 6 Greylag Geese, lots of Swallows and Housemartins....all the above seen from the hide.

Took a walk down the lane where I encountered a tit flock which consisted of 20+ Long Tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Great Tits and 10+ Willow/Chiffs.

Received an email from a friend who had been down Wyver Lane yesterday evening. He had 60+ Teal, 70 Mallard, 3 Redhead Goosander and 4 Snipe. A male Sparrowhawk took a Blackbird, but the obvious highlight was 1000+ Swallows in a pre roost gathering. Must have been an awesome sight.

Down Wyver today and it at times felt like winter with the first Wigeon on the main pool, and a cold NE wind to boot. Teal building up with 67 counted. Also about were 6 Shoveler, redhead Goosander, Tuftie, 3 Grey Herons, Cormorant, 14 BH Gulls, 1st winter Common Gull, 5 Snipe, 6 Stock Doves, 2 Mistle Thrush, 5+ Swallows, 5+ Housemartins, 3 Chiff Chaffs including singing.

Had a walk down the lane and there was a bit of a commotion coming from a large oak tree. Got my bins on it and there were 2 Sparrowhawks being hassled by 6 Magpies, at least 3 Jays and a few Jackdaws.

Pleasant few hours down Wyver today. Very still and some warm sunny intervals. Around the main pool was 68 Teal, 60 Mallards, 5 Shoveler, 2 Goosander, drake Mandarin, 4 Grey Herons, 3 Cormorants, 5 Snipe, c50 Lapwing and Water Rail (first of the autumn). Still a few Hirundines knocking about in the shape of c40 Housemartins, c20 Swallows and one of the latest Sand Martins I've ever seen.

Also from the hide was a Green Woodpecker heard yaffling and then briefly in flight, a male Great Spotted Woodpecker, several Jays, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Buzzard, Mistle Thrush, Reed Bunting and 3 Starling.

Took a walk to the bottom of the lane where in the past some good migrants have been found, though unfortunately not by me. Plenty of Blackbirds and Tits down there, plus a Goldcrest, Wrens, Robins, 3 Siskins over and 2 Chiff Chaffs. A couple of Coal Tits were by the car as I was leaving.

as it has been confirmed, i thought i would put the link here to my chiffchaff pics.

http://s692.photobucket.com/albums/vv283/michael23_photo/Warblers/

Down Wyver Lane today and the water levels are fairly low after the recent dry spell. There's some work being carried out down there at the moment with some heavy machinery on the upper pool developing some scrapes. They've also sorted out the drainage that affects the main pool. The only problem is, is that the big machine doing the work broke down at the weekend and has yet to be fixed.

Of note today: 67 Teal plus a dead female on the far side of the pool, 65 Mallard, 6 Shoveler, 4 Cormorant, 3 Grey Herons, 6 Snipe, Water Rail, 185 BH Gulls. Not often we get Gulls other than BHG so it was nice to see 29 Lesser Black Backed Gulls today. 10+ Swallows, 10+ Housemartins, Green Wood, Great Spot Wood, Jay, 2 Stock Doves, Chiff Chaff singing, Little Owl, 3 Grey Wags. A few flyovers including singles of Skylark, Meadow Pipit and Siskin.

I reckon Wyver is due a goodie soon. I reckon either a Glossy, Sabines, a good Wader or a rare Egret of some sort. You heard it here first.

Wyver Lane bird notes September 2009

Wildfowl counts for September include 70+ Teal on 22nd, 120 Mallards on 19th and 12th, 2 drake Gadwall on 26th and 28th and a female on 1st and 5th, 3 female Goosander on 10th and 19th and 1 on 1st, 2 males on 22nd, 6 Shoveler on 15th and 29th, a female/juvenile Mandarin on 8th and a male on 19th, the only record of Wigeon was of a single bird on 15th. c100 Pink-footed Geese flew west on 27th. 9 Cormorants on 22nd, 4 Grey Herons on 19th. A single Liitle Grebe on 8th.

Raptors include 2 Buzzards regularly seen, Kestrel seen almost daily, 2 Sparrowhawks on 15th, a male on 1st and a male caught a Blackbird left of the hide on 10th. A Little Owl was heard calling on 29th.

Water Levels are now quite low after a very dry month but Waders have still been few and far between. c200 Lapwings recorded on several dates and Snipe numbers are slowly building up with a maximum of eight on 27th.

A 1st winter Common Gull was among the Black Headed Gulls on 15th, Black Headed Gulls peaked at 185 on 29th and 29 Lesser Black Backed Gulls also on 29th.

At least 5 Jays were seen on 15th, c20 Long-tailed Tits on 8th plus c10 Willow/Chiffs, 3 Chiff Chaffs on 15th including one singing, Chiff Chaff singing on 29th, a Whitethroat on 1st. Green Woodpecker and Great Spotted Woodpecker were both seen regularly throughout the month. 40 Housemartins on 19th, 20 Swallows on 19th and also 1 Sand Martin on 19th. 9 Swallows and 7 Housemartins on 29th. The Hirundine highlight was a 1'000 plus Swallows around dusk on 10th. A Water Rail on 19th, 28th and 29th, 4 Mistle Thrushes on 8th, 2 Stock Doves also on 8th, 3 Siskin on 19th and 1 on 29th, 22 Jackdaws on the island on 26th, 3 Grey Wagtails on 29th, and a Skylark and Meadow Pipit both over on 29th.

A brief visit to Wyver this morning so I could get the bird notes done for September. A bit of disturbance due to a work party but still managed to see 3 Water Rails. One stayed still long enough by the water mark post for me to get a few photos, and 2 more were only a few feet apart on the far side. Who knows, there could well be more.

2 Sparrowhawks including close views of a female in front of the hide. 9 Snipe, singing Chiff Chaff, 3 Grey Wagtails and 4 Swallows.

very satisfying pics those mate...................low water could well mean they show reasonably well when foraging for food.
I have seen most in front of hide and also just across from layby in southern end of pool.
Hope the water remains low for a little longer - has the digger gone yet?

Daniel Martin said:

very satisfying pics those mate...................low water could well mean they show reasonably well when foraging for food.
I have seen most in front of hide and also just across from layby in southern end of pool.
Hope the water remains low for a little longer - has the digger gone yet?

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Cheers Dan, I was thinking the same thing about them showing well due to the low water levels. Let's hope there's something else lurking in the reeds that decides to show itself. The digger has been out of action since the weekend but they finally got it working again today. There was quite a big working party down there today putting in posts, strimming, mowing etc between the two pools. Still not entirely sure what they're doing though.

Called in this evening after work and it was bathed in warm sunshine. The work party were still around, and as I stood and chatted a Water Rail showed in the open for ten minutes at the south end. I scoped it for one of the guys - his first! We counted 22 Snipe around the perimeter, and had 4 Swallows and 2 HouseMartins. Also around were 8individual soaring Buzzards, plenty of Teal and 36 Wigeon.
We chatted about the new scrape and it sounds good with the excavated material being used to build a viewing mound.

Like the sound of what is happening down there,that top pool has bags of potential to me, and a viewing mound is just what is needed. Great shots of the Rails Dave.

Just an update on the work that is being carried out down Wyver Lane. I received an email from a friend who had been talking to the digger driver down there.

Went down to Wyver this evening what a smashing eveing.

Spoke with the digger driver, great chap.

Another 4 days work left to do he thinks.

The viewing mound is coming on but DWT decided today that it will be changed around so it will look different.

Apparently as edging to the platform they are not doing a sleeper edge like at Carr Vale but post and rail with hedging and planting infront of it (?) So it will take a while to mature and be quite open for a while.Also the ditches and troughs had been designed so from the mound you could look down them however with the alterations it we will now look off scue ...never mind!

We will be able to view the scrape too from outside the hide looking over the near corner of the scrape, and this is where the water vole bank has been built.

The scrape is certainly taking shape, it has been designed to hold water through the seasons with a series of ridges and troughs to maximise edge effect and therefore good feeding opportunities for waterbirds. Plenty of area for birds to patrol up and down. Within it at least 20 pools have been created so that what ever the water level there will be habitat available. Though quite a bit of it will not be viewable.

Max depths about 1.5 to 2 metres ( good to keep invertebrates going ) so in winter when it floods it will be a large open pool then as levels drop it will be classic scrape (fingers crossed)

As the guy has been digging he has come across field drains every 15 foot parallel across the field so they have now gone!
Some of the risings that have been used to cover the ''Garganey'' pools to provide level grazing, however I think the habitat created will compensate for their loss plus we may see a few pools develop as the risings slump ( I hope!!)

So things are looking good. I think Wyver could turn into quite a hotspot with these habitat improvements.( again we can hope!!)

Beautiful October day today with a frosty start but later in the day the sun was quite pleasant and warm. The work is going well and would already have finished but for the starter motor packing up on the digger. They had to send off for the part from Germany and then wait 5 days for it to arrive.

Quite a good selection of birds today but a Jack Snipe is the obvious stand out bird. I scanned the muddy edges to the pool on the far side and picked out 12 Common Snipe. Then, in the left hand corner behind the island I spotted a Snipe sp and said to myself 'that's a bit short billed'. With the sun shining down, the yellow stripes on its back looked positively golden. I realised then that I was looking at a Jack Snipe, and my first for the county. Then It did what the two previous Jack Snipe I had seen never did.....the characteristic bobbing. It sat there for a while bobbing up and down like someone was controlling it on a piece of elastic. If I'd have known it was going to stay in the open for so long then I would have got a photo or two, but I was just so intent in watching the bird that I never even thought about getting a photo.

A Water Rail was seen on several occasions and could well have involved several birds. 135 Redwings in total including two flocks of 75 and 60. Other sightings include 2 juv Mute Swans, 200 Bh Gulls, 25 Lapwings, 2 Buzzards, Kestrel, 3 Grey Herons, Cormorant, 4 Shovelers, Reed Bunting, Skylark over, Green Woodpecker, 20 Long-tailed Tit, Treecreeper, 3 Pied Wags, 2 Grey Wags, Jay and 62 Greylag Geese.

40 Species in total which I don't think is bad haul for Wyver Lane.

B****er I need Jack for Wyver, and I went past earlier and thought about calling late afternoon...... Figured it would be disturbed from works.....

Cheers

Steph'

Gomphus said:

B****er I need Jack for Wyver, and I went past earlier and thought about calling late afternoon...... Figured it would be disturbed from works.....

Cheers

Steph'

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Never mind, Steph. There was no real point in putting it out at the time unless anybody was within a few hundred yards. The work is being carried out around the top pool so the main pool isn't really being affected. There has been some work on the main pool but that seems to have finished now.

Well believe it or not, I need Jack Snipe for a lifer! Funny how I said, last time we were down there Dave, that we should check all the Snipe, never mind I will get one soon.