Doxey babies

After a busy week of databases and bat surveys, my weekend off allowed me to make an afternoon visit to Doxey Marshes today.  It was great to see the mute swans on Cemetery Pool have a new brood of healthy cygnets.  Earlier in the week we had reports that the adults and cygnets had been separated but the RSPCA checked and all was fine, as today.

Babies were a common theme across the reserve today, with several broods of reed bunting evident and being fed by their parents.  Many pools hosted a family of mallard, recently fledged blackbirds were being fed in the hedgerow and many young robins were hoping around.

Thankfully I arrived at the bird hide just in time to escape the rain, and rain it did!  A torrential down pour.  Birds seen included a pair of little-ringed plover, two displaying male lapwing and a single female, a drake shoveler, a pair of common tern and a pair of great crested grebe desperately trying to build up their nest.  The long-tailed tits and sedge warbler continue to nest nearby and several blackcap were in full song.

An unexpected fox caused a brief panic amongst the birds when it woke up from a rest in the vegetation on the scrape wall.  It started to head home, until a nesting pair of canada geese went on full attack.  After a brief chase the fox was back in the area and whilst foraging came a worryingly close to the presumed location of a snipe nest.  An adult snipe quietly walked away from the fox as it approached, as if not to draw attention to the possibility of a nest.  The fox didn't hang around long, so may not have found anything to eat.  Fingers crossed.

Heading home I passed the Oxbow Pool reedbed near Cemetery Pool.  Several warblers were singing including reed, sedge and a willow warbler slightly further down the cycle way, the first I've heard for a while.  One pair of reed warbler were busily flitting through the vegetation, bringing food back to a single location.  Looks like we've got more babies.