Sunday 29th july
It was really sunny when i arrived at the reserve this morning and for the first time in weeks, when i got out of the car, i could have heard a pin drop!! No sound of black headed gulls and you could hear all the other birds singing instead.
A male blackcap was the first, followed by wren, robin and blackbird. As i got nearer to the gullery hide, i could hear the faint sound of a gull...lesser black back. There were a few black headed gulls around but not making any obtrusive noise. Weeks ago we had 500+ gulls here and today i counted 28.
On the water, i noticed the coot family were now feeding just the one chick, while the female chased a couple of young moorhens. There weren't alot of birds around at all. Tufted ducks, teal, wigeon, little grebe and mallards.
I decided to go along to the east hide to see if the water rail were still showing well. Great spotted w'pecker, chaffinch, great tit and crow were added to the list on the way. I only had to wait a few moments before a young water rail scampered across from one side to the other. The mother came out a few moments later along with another youngster and the other two soon followed them. They must have got fed up with all the photographs from last week cos they didn't hang around at all.
Back at gullery hide, as i sat down, an adult water rail flew across in front, and another flew backwards and forwards from the areas of bogbean over to the right. In all, i saw 5 adult birds...another day for water rail!!
The Ospreys came in to fish for a while along with a couple of herons, some common gulls, reed bunting, willow and sedge warblers and 8 buzzards.
At the swamp area, it too was really quiet. Mallards, tufted duck, coots and three lesser black backs were the only birds sighted here....i did see a curlew fly past too.
I went back to gullery just as 7 oystercatchers flew past and that was that. I was only at the reserve for a few hours today as i am off to Norfolk tonight for four days on my own!!B
:-O
Next sunday is a family fun day at kinnordy. Pond dipping etc... 10am til 4pm!!:t: