Kings, Spot and Elephants at Maple Lodge NR

My plans for today were always to visit Maple Lodge NR and as this week went on reports started coming in on the Maple Lodge Facebook page of some good finds.

 First of all 13 Common Sandpipers and two Green Sandpipers dropped in on the 25th, then on the 27th two Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillars were found. Reports from yesterday (the 28th) suggested that most of the Sandpipers and both of the caterpillars were still on site. So with anticipation I set off this morning on the hour public transport commute to the reserve.

 

It was straight to the Rotunda Hide, and I was seated and patiently waiting by 9am. Sadly for me the Sandpipers weren't as excited to see me as I was to see them, and it looks as if they've moved on elsewhere. But within ten minutes one of the local Kingfishers landed on a handy perch in front of the hide......

 

 

I could hear the calls of other Kingfishers nearby but it wasn't until I followed the gaze of the first one......

 



 

that I saw my second one, perched in a shrub across the water.......

 

then came the shrill call of another one, that landed in the reeds on the waters edge......

 

and for a brief few minutes I had three Kingfishers all perched and in view at the same time. They were all males, with the one in the shrubs across the water looking distinctively more juvenile than the other two but as I only had my 150-300mm zoom lens on the camera, I couldn't get a clearer shot of it. Eventually they all flew off chasing each other around the reeds so I decided to venture off to find the Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillars.

 

The contractors levelling out the new paths were working right by the area I thought the caterpillars were, so I carried on walking figuring the caterpillars wouldn't go far and the contractors will have moved on after a while

 

. It was a decision I'm glad I made.......

 

By the owl box meadow I hung around for a bit hoping one of the Brown Hawkers would settle on an obliging perch or a Brown Argus would show itself, but neither were to be.

 I was just approaching the area with the three benches when movement caught my eye. A small brown job was flushed out of the nearby brambles and landed in front of me......

A lovely little Spotted Flycatcher.....

 

 

Sadly a ChiffChaff was chasing it around, and they both flitted from tree to tree before I grabbed the photo below......

 

and they both flew over me heading towards the farmland.

 

I don't know what the ChiffChaff had against the Flycatcher, and I've never seen this behaviour before. At two of my local patches, Lake Farm and Cranford Park, I've seen Spotted Flycatchers hang around in the same tree or scrubby bush for hours and never be mobbed by other birds, but for some reason this ChiffChaff really didn't like this lovely little migrant and persistently chased it away.

 

So I've got the contractors to thank for seeing the Flycatcher......if they hadn't been working right next to the area where the Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillars were, I'd have lingered there too long and completely missed the Spot Fly. Thanks contractors (smiley face).

I went back to the same area three more times during the course of the day but could not relocate the Spotted Flycatcher again. 

 

So back to the caterpillars. An hour later I went back to the area where they had been seen yesterday, and bingo, I was in luck, and the contractors had moved further down the path.

Only Maple Lodge regulars will understand these directions - there are several patches of Orange Balsam (photo of flower below) on the boggy water side between the Puddingstone and the tree where the Sparrowhawks nested.

In the largest patch were both of the caterpillars....

 

 

The 150-300mm zoom lens went in my rucksack and was replaced by my macro lens.....

 

This is why it is called the Elephant Hawkmoth........When disturbed or threatened the caterpillar can pull it's head deep inside it's body, showing just two large 'eye' markings which are meant to put off any predator. But undisturbed, the head emerges from the body on a long thick narrowing 'neck' which gives the appearance of an elephants head and trunk.......

 

Considering how intricately marked the caterpillar's body is, the head is small, dowdy and grey, but it's jaws are powerful and it made light work of the tough balsam leaves and buds.

 

I've seen several species of adult Hawkmoth before, but this was my first Elephant Hawk caterpillar so for me, my first Spotted Flycatcher of the year and these caterpillars more than made up for missing the Sandpipers.

 

Elsewhere around the reserve I saw Hobbys. From the Rotunda, Clubhouse, Long Hedge and Shell hides I saw a Hobby swooping down from the sky, low over the water then back up. I don't know if it was the same bird each time, but it was very active. Even though I changed my camera setting to 'sports' mode I couldn't capture it and the below shot was the best I could do today.....

 

 

 

There were still a few butterflies around today. I mainly saw Large Whites and a couple of Speckled Woods. There were also a few day flying Pyrausta aurata micro-moths around (aka Small Purple and Gold)....

 

On the path alongside the owl box meadow there were some small Puffball fungi. They probably wont last long though as they're only the size of marbles and will get trodden on and squashed before they can get to the giant size they're capable of......

 

The sunshine bought out some critters....

Long-winged Conehead.....

 

Dock Bug......

 

Female Scorpion Fly with lunch I think, and being observed by another little critter........

 

Naturally at this time of year there were plenty of dragonflies around, but as usual trying to get a photo is hard work. Even when they do settle, it's usually a way off and I struggled to get any clear shots today. I think the two below are Southern Hawker but feel free to correct me....

 

The Darters were much more obliging. I'm no expert in Odonata but I think the photos below are of all Ruddy Darters......

 

And this obliging one below let me get in quite close for a macro shot......

 

It wouldn't be a visit to Maple Lodge without seeing the regulars.....

 

Little Grebe...

 

 

Great Crested Grebe, adult and teenage juvenile.....

 

male Gadwall.....

 

female Gadwall.....

 

female Tufted Duck with feather stuck to her beak....

 

I was also fortunate to meet Jill whilst in the Clubhouse hide eating my sandwich. She showed me where to put my donation for using the facilities and making myself a cup of coffee (£1 in the pot), and I showed her a Darter that had settled itself on the log in front of the hide.

 But Jill had the best view whilst I was waiting for the kettle to boil, of a juvenile Heron swooping in to the feeder area and plucking out a rat from the bushes. I'd just got back to my seat and raised my camera when an adult Heron which had been happily perched on the rafts, heard the commotion and flew over to muscle in. The juvenile then took the rat further under the willows and out of camera shot.

The squeaking rat could be heard for a few minutes, then all was silent and a short while later the juvenile Heron flew out and over the clubhouse.

Heron 1 - Rat 0

That's Nature for you.

 

As always since I joined the reserve in May, I had a great visit to Maple Lodge, and I will definitely keep up the once a month visits to this beautifully kept and looked after reserve.

It's been a great day.

 

 

 

 

 

Hobbys, Red Kites, Kestrels and more at Cranford Park

It's been one hell of a day at Cranford Park. Maggie and Nathalie travelled up through the First Great Western train strike, and I admit I was a little concerned that they'd gone through all that trouble for nothing......but I couldn't have been more wrong. Maggie mentioned she wanted to see the Kestrels and Swallows, well we certainly did that plus a lot more.

 

One of the old trees damaged in the winter storms from a couple of years ago near the car park, has sustained more damage and lost more of it's trunk and a few branches. Looking at all of the mistletoe on the dead branches, I wonder if the weight of them was a factor.....

 

 

This was Maggies' first visit to Cranford Park and Nathalies last visit was quite brief, so we covered quite a bit of land today.

 

We found lots of Himalyan Balsam in the woods, on the outskirts of the woods and in the north of the park by The Crane. Just like buddleia and rhododendrons, this isn't a native plant but is a thug and often takes over large patches of scrubland, suffocating out the smaller native flowers, shrubs and bushes. It might be pretty just like the buddleia, and the bees might like it, but don't be fooled. It's more foe than friend....

 

We found a well established Honey Bee hive. A few years ago Stock Doves nested in this hollow, today a good colony of bees have moved in. I'm not 100% sure if the white stuff at the top of the photo is a fungus or part of the nest, but you can see the honeycomb and bees underneath it....

 

 

We found fun fungi, though I forgot to note what Nathalie said it was....

 

We found a male Banded Demoiselle.....

 

 

We found a faded Common Darter....

 

We even had a fly by Kingfisher on the River Crane.

 

We also seemed to experience several seasons of weather today. We had heavy rain, sunshine, cool winds and warm winds......

 

We were even treated to Maggie doing a 'rain dance' in the middle of the wood circle.....

 

But our high-light of the day was the number of birds of prey we saw. We had only been in the park for five minutes and had a Buzzard, two Red Kites and two Hobbys go over. How's that for a promising start ?

 

For me it was the calling of the juvenile Hobbys that really made my day. Once we located them I realised they had been fledged for probably 3-4 days already. The juveniles weren't bunched together on their nest tree like last year, they were already flying around separately. After watching them for most of the day, or them watching us, we know we have two juveniles this year compared to the four we had last year (that number including the one that was found by a member of the public, raised as a family pet for two weeks, bought to the woods for a 'walk' and subsequently found by Sue and I, confiscated, taken to a wildlife centre, then successfully released three weeks later - but that's another story !!) The dates are consistent too. Last years young fledged during mid-August and so did this years. Another success story for Cranford Park and so long as the nest tree is kept a guarded secret, there is no reason why they wont breed again at CP next year.

 

So here's an overload of Hobby photos. None of them are going to win me any prizes, but I wasn't there to get the 'perfect' photo....

 

 

Along with the next featured bird, the Hobbys were seen almost all day. At times we really didn't know where to look first.

 

Cranford Park often has Red Kites visiting, mainly one bird, occasionally two, sometimes even three soar overhead, but today we had four. Not only that but for the first time ever in my years of watching the wildlife at CP, two individual birds actually landed in trees in the park to eat......

 

Of course they naturally attracted the attention of the local Carrion Crows....

 

 

The first Red Kite that we saw land in a tree was at the far end of the park by Cranford Lane. We saw it fly in but for a large bird, it was then surprisingly hard to locate, but with patience we found it on a branch eating prey (sorry for the bad photos but a record shot is a record shot).....

 

A few hours later we spotted a second bird soaring and eating at the same time. Quite common behaviour amongst Kites, but them it too, decided to fly in to perch and finish it's prey. Annoyingly it decided to do it with it's back against us, so again these are record shots only....

 

When we saw the four birds together over the cereal field, they were interacting, so this could possibly be a family group. However with the height of some our trees in Cranford Woods, and the success of Hobbys, Sparrowhawks, Kestrels and Little Owls already recorded as breeding here, could we be adding the Red Kite to the list soon ?

 

I didn't think we'd see Kestrels today. The juveniles fledged well over a month ago and have spent most of that time learning how to hunt in the long meadow grasses. However last weekend, a good portion of the meadow grasses were mown. I really don't understand why mowing just cant be left until September. There are still butterflies around that will be laying eggs, and as we found today when we nearly trod on a Meadow Pipit, there are still birds around that use the long grasses for cover. This same area last year in the same month, was attracting Whinchats and Stonechats. None of them seen today. I understand land management, I just don't understand why that timetable doesn't adjust itself to natures way of saying when something is over.

 

So I was surprised to see two young Kestrels still out and about, though to be honest we didn't see them in the morning when the model aeroplane club was out flying it's latest models, we caught up with them in the afternoon after the heavy rain fall. They were quite flighty not like the early days when I could get quite close to them, but all the same it was quite nice to see them flying off the moment they realised we were nearby watching them. Within the next week or so, they'll be off exploring new territories, finding partners and raising their own families in a couple of years. As always I will be sad to see them go, but as always it's been great watching them grow and learn at Cranford Park....

 

 

Our last point of call is always going to stick in my throat as a bitter sweet moment.

We had tried to check on the Swallows nest a few times during the course of the day, but the homeless guy was always asleep right under the nest as usual. Luckily I know his habits now, and as soon as the sun came out after the rain had stopped, I knew we'd find him moved on. I was right, but what I wasn't prepared for was finding a Swallow chick or nestling on the ground. I say 'chick' because this youngster hadn't flown the nest, it looks like it's fallen out of it.........

 

 

I was unable to check the nest last weekend, so don't know when it started to crumble away, or if it even has crumbled away and not had stones thrown at it again. I cant speculate as I don't know.

But the nest is a mess, and it looks as if there is still another chick in there.....

 

Both adult birds were screaming warning cries at us, but we couldn't possibly leave the young Swallow chick on the ground. We don't know how long it had been there, it hadn't been that visible when we were checking if the homeless guy was there all day, so had it just fallen ? Had it fallen earlier but been nestled up in the homeless guys possesions ? Had it been on the floor but further back from our view ?

And what to do next ? We didn't want to handle it, scare it and alienate the parents. The nest was too high for us to get a ladder and pop the baby back in. We couldn't even find a ladder anyway. So we done the next best thing. I have access to the Secret Garden so we took an old basket from there, made it a little more comfortable with broken up leaves (which the youngster tried pecking at), found a suitable place next to the original nest to hang it and enlisted the help of a tall young man, who was more than willing to help, to stand on a chair and tie the basket in position....

 

I know there may be some people who say we should have scooped up the bird and taken it directly to the nearest wildlife centre, but this wasn't the same scenario as it was with the juvenile Hobby last year. The adult Swallows were already stressed with seeing off the wandering Hobbys, let alone stressing where it's fallen nestling had gone.

 

I believe we have done the right thing with the young Swallow. It's only about two or three days away from fledging. As long as it calls when it sees it's parents flying in to feed its sibling, I'm sure it wont take long for the adults to feed him/her too. I only wish I could go back and see for myself tomorrow....

 

Anyway a bitter sweet ending to a truly fantastic day. Maggie wanted Kestrels and Swallows and Cranford Park provided so much more.....

Great day and great company. Thanks ladies x