I spent a great six hours at Maple Lodge Nature Reserve yesterday, one of my favourite places to visit. With its many hides plus access to a kettle and toilet, it's easy to spend a whole day there.
As always I started my visit drinking coffee in the Clubhouse Hide. It was fairly quiet except for the incessant 'trilling' of a pair of Little Grebes that are nest building to the right hand side, though not near enough for any decent photos. The feeders were busy with the usual suspects including this lovely Long-tailed Tit below that only has half a tail.....
From the Teal Hide I watched a pair of Mallards investigating the nest boxes. It was quite comical. I didn't get any photos of the first box they were looking in, the highest one of the three visible, but I did get snaps of them investigating the other two. The male always looked first and after he flew back down to the water, the female would then fly up and have a look herself.....
A nice full plumage male Pochard was swimming around too....
There have been many sightings of Common Snipe from the Rotunda Hide recently, and they didn't disappoint today though a little too far for my little camera. There were two on the ground and another two flew in whilst I was there but disappeared straight away from view once they landed.....
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| Spot the snipe.... |
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| Heavily cropped Common Snipe |
One fungi that I have never seen is the Scarlet or Ruby Elf Cap so I was pretty chuffed to find six specimens today. A nice big life tick for me......
and there were lots of Jelly Ears dotted around the reserve....
In the 'Everglades' there was a healthy good sized clump of frogspawn...
and two Treecreepers were flitting from trunk to trunk......
There wasn't too much to see on the walk from the sluice up to Lynsters Hide except for lots of rabbits and lots of Blackbirds....
And of course there were lots of Robins all over the reserve with this one below by the wildlife pond...
A lot of the birds seen today appeared to be in pairs, which of course is completely to be expected at this time of year. The Jay below was one of a pair that was coming down to the flooded everglades to drink.....
There were another pair of Little Grebes 'trilling' from the Long Hedge Hide but no sign of any Great Crested Grebes. The Black-headed Gulls are displaying now, squabbling over territories and attempting to nest build. The pair below were collecting twigs and trying to establish a nest across some recently cut stumps but the water level looks to be too high for that to succeed....
I didn't see any Great or Blue Tits going in and out of any of the many nest boxes but a pair were popping in and out of one of the traffic cones by the storage sheds.....
From the viewing platform looking over the farm fields there were two Oystercatchers mingling with the Greylag and Canada geese. There were also two almost pure white hybrid Greylags. Photo below is a very distant crop of a Magpie, Oystercatcher, hybrid and pure Greylag.....
Although it is officially Spring now, there still aren't many flowering plants around. The Lesser Celandine is just starting to come in to bloom.....
and there's a nice spread of Primroses on the approach to the Teal Hide which looked great with rain droplets on.....
along with this bright yellow flower below, which I first thought was Forsythia but suspect it is actually Gorse....
Even the spiders webs looked pretty after the morning showers...
Other birds seen included Red Kite, Buzzard, Reed Bunting and Stock Dove with Green and Great Spotted Woodpecker heard calling.
There is always plenty to see at Maple Lodge NR at any season and in any weather conditions. There are plenty of hides and benches dotted around the site. It really is a little jewel of a place.
Below are links to the reserves website and facebook page....
Maple Lodge Nature Reserve website
Maple Lodge Nature Reserve facebook page
