It is a large area of lakes and marsh, very similar to Stodmarsh but on a much grander scale.
The speciality birds here are breeding black necked grebes and whiskered terns,but other notables seen were stone curlew,montagus harrier,golden oriole,purple heron,night heron,great and cattle egrets,black kite,honey buzzard booted eagle,melodious warbler,hoopoe,nightingale,serin and cirl bunting.(for a full list if interested see Pete Wells blog).
The weather was absolutely perfect,warm,calm and sunny every day, ideal for butterflies and dragonflies as well as birds.Although not particularly numerous the butterflies that were of note included black veined white,knapweed fritillary and spotted fritillary all of which were new to me.
The Knapweed Frits and the Black-veined Whites are having a big year. The dry has really affected those butterflies which should be producing their second generation by now though. I did my transects today and got BVW in almost every transect, plus 5 species of Frit over all.
ReplyDelete