A Very Hot Day

Monday, August 26th 2019

I went to check on Lark and Taurus, using the little gate onto Plover's Pool.  No one in sight, opened the gate and suddenly hooves thundering on the ground, well that's what it sounded like, as I hurried back through the gate!  Lark and I then had a conversation along the lines that he was to stay on his side and I would stay on mine.  I am not sure if it was in agreement or in annoyance, but he then sneezed all over me!

Taurus wandered over but was too busy eating grass to be concerned about the gate.  Looking at their legs, both had been in Plover's Pool cooling off.

I walked the long way back to the middle moor to photograph the neat lines of cut hay.

 After lunch the hay had been baled.  Last year due to the drought, there was only one and a half bales, this year there are ten.

House Martins are beginning to gather for their southern migration and were drinking from Spigot Mere.  A Pied Wagtail was seen on one of the spits into the Mere.  Common Darters were egg laying and a Black-tailed Skimmer flew right along the moor path, but not stopping long enough for a photo to be taken.

Red Poppies like disturbed ground and this one was growing right on the edge of the Mere.

Down on the lake a Moorhen has had a late brood of two young chicks.  Not a brilliant photograph, but if you look closely you can see one of the youngsters right on the back of the adult.

The bird ringers were ringing at another site today.  They ringed Reed Buntings and Reed Warblers and also a Sedge Warbler.

Then there was a surprise.  I will let Tony tell the story.

'Mark was the first to hear a Cettis Warbler, then we both heard it a couple of times more.  Imagine the surprise when in the far end net I extracted what I felt sure was a Cettis juvenile.  I took it back, the first I have ever caught in the UK, and after counting the tail feathers and checking the wing emargination it could be nothing else.  As I have ringed several in Cyprus and the Middle East, Mark ringed it.

Two net rounds later I extracted an adult male well into moult from exactly the same place in the net line.  Two Cettis Warblers!  Then a minute later Mark found and extracted another juvenile!  So we ended up with 3 Cettis today which was pretty good!  The first I have caught in 30years!  Quite a reasonable day and well worth getting up a little early!'

This is quite an unusual bird for this area, so will be an excellent record.

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