28th August
Ringing this morning: 15 new birds and 3 re-traps. Blackcaps responded well with 5 caught. I re-trapped Chiffchaff was first ringed on 5 May, re-trapped twice more up to 9th June but not again until today. He is still hanging around then.
27th August
Constant Effort Site ringing: A total of 13 new and 7 re-traps is a pretty poor return although most were warblers so better on that account. One re-trapped Reed Warbler was nice – first ringed in 2011 and then re-trapped in 2012 but not since.
23rd August
Martin Wood recorded 4 Little Grebes, the first Wheatear of the autumn and lots of young Tufted ducklings about on the water.
21st August
At long last ‘unblocked’ my Longham Lakes ‘bogey bird’ when I flushed a Green Sandpiper from the small pool at the south end of the Longham Reservoir South. Little else of interest other than modest numbers of all 3 hirundines and a couple of latish Swifts (George Green).
19th August
Dorset Bird Club website recorded 1 Mandarin on the River Stour by Longham Bridge.
16th August
Trevor Wilkinson counted 26 juvenile Tufted Ducks (hopefully there were some hiding), 20 Mute Swans, 6 Great Crested Grebes, 3 Little Grebes (probably including 1 youngster) and 2 Lapwing. There were also butterflies around, including Small Tortoiseshell, Small White and Clouded Yellow; also Emperor dragonfly.
15th August
Constant Effort Site ringing: a bit better with 34 new birds and 5 retraps, but still rather below what one would expect at this stage of the year. Warblers are doing a bit better – 8 Reed Warblers, 7 Willow Warblers, 6 Chiffchaff, 1 Blackcap and the first Garden Warbler of the year. Four Bullfinches was nice (and unexpected) – 2 juvs and 2 Ad F in moult. It was a varied spread of species (13 different ones) – apart from those above the new totals were, 2 Robins and one each of Blackbird, Wren, Dunnock, Blue Tit and Reed Bunting. One of the re-traps was of interest – a Great Tit I ringed as a pullus at Canford on 20 May! (Roger Peart).
10th August
There were good numbers of Swallows and Sand Martins, plus 2 Common Sandpipers and a Peregrine (Robin Trundle).
8th August
Constant Effort Site ringing: The general trend of the summer continued with a poor number of birds caught – 24 new and 7 re-traps. Reed Warblers accounted for 6 of the new birds as also did Willow Warbler, while 4 Song Thrush (3 juv, 1ad) was the other predominant species. I did have a Cuckoo fly low over the netting area which was interesting (Roger Peart).
This afternoon there were several Small Red-eyed Damselfly (a rare species) on the small pond at the SW corner of Longham Reservoir South (George Green).
7th August
There was a report of a Cuckoo on the Dorset Bird Club website.
28th July
An extra ringing session this morning. The catch included 5 Goldfinches, 3 Song Thrushes, a Blackcap (adult female in moult) and a Whitethroat (adult in moult too), but the highlight was 11 Willow Warblers and 7 Chiffchaffs. Willow Warblers don’t breed on site but in the past three years I have caught some passing through from the end of July through August (they were very scarce last year, just 7 ringed, but I had 74 in 2012). So it looks as though they are on the move in good numbers now (Roger Peart).
26th July
A visit to Longham Lakes this evening produced a nice female/immature Garganey. Other birds of minor interest were the 1st 2 Pochards of the autumn and 2 Common Sandpipers. There were also about 120 young Tufted Ducks.
24th July
Constant Effort Site ringing this morning turned out to be the best of the year so far with 51 captures made up of 40 new birds and 11 re-traps. An extra net caught 7 Goldfinch, 2 Chiffchaffs, 1 Reed Bunting, 1 Blackbird, 4 Dunnocks. The new birds that the standard nets produced were 12 Reed Warbler (6 each ads and juvs), 6 Chiffchaffs, 2 Long-tailed Tits and one each of Wren, Song Thrush, Reed Bunting, Robin, Great Tit, Bullfinch, Blackcap and our first Sedge Warbler of the year. Good that there are actually some Reed Warblers and Chiffchaffs around at last (Roger Peart).
Meanwhile, 1 Egyptian Goose, 1 Common Sandpiper and 1 Common Tern were all present on the Lakes (George Green). There were no less than 136 young Tufted Ducks, prompting George to pen the following:
“I am curious to know whether the breeding strategy seemingly adopted by Tufted Ducks at Longham is normal for the species. For the 4th summer in succession there has been no sign of any young until mid/late July when suddenly there seems to be synchronised hatching of young. Last Monday I found 9 broods/creches totally c140 very young chicks. All the young seemed to be of a similar (if not identical) age. The sizes of the broods/creches varied from 2 to 52 with usually 2-4 adults in attendance.”
23rd July
An early (7am) walk around the lakes: 1 Common Sandpiper, 2 Common Tern, 19 Lapwings and 1 Redshank (on large island). (Alan Pearce)
21st July
3 Egyptian Geese, 3 Shoveler, 2 Common Sandpipers and 2 Common Terns (George Green). There were around 140 very young Tufted Duck chicks (see above).
20th July
This morning a circuit of Longham Lakes revealed the following highlights: Egyptian Goose – 3, Common Sandpiper – 3, Common Tern – 2, Tufted Duck – 89 newly hatched ducklings (Trevor Thorpe).
19th July
Butterflies recorded today included Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown and Small Skipper (Roger Peart).
18th July
Trevor Wilkinson made some informative counts, including 42 Mute Swan, 10 Cormorants, 2 Grey Heron, 1 Egyptian Goose, 5 Lapwings, 5 Great Crested Grebes, 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and 7 Reed Buntings. In terms of breeding birds, there were 4 adult Canada Geese with their 8 young, and there were also 50+ Tufted Ducks, including creches of 13 and 30, the first of the year. There was also a Ringed/Little Ringed Plover.
Other stuff included Peacock, Large White and Brimstone butterflies, plus 4 Rabbits.
16th July
Constant Effort Site ringing: just 24 new and 10 re-traps caught. The slightly positive side is that 7 of the new birds were Reed Warblers, all but one being juveniles. The other new birds were 2 Wrens, and one each of Robin, Blackbird, Song Thrush and Great Tit. The other re-traps were 4 Robins, 2 Long-tailed Tits, 1 Reed Bunting and two other Reed Warblers (Roger Peart).
13th July
Martin Wood noted, among other stuff, Lapwings, 2 Egyptian Geese, a Little Grebe and a Common Tern.
12th July
3 Little Ringed Plovers (2 ads & 1juv) on the island at the north end of LR South – my 1st site record this year. Also of interest – 10+ Med Gulls, the first since the spring, including a juvenile bird, 6 Teal and a Common Tern (George Green).
8th July
1 Common Sandpiper at the top right of LR North, 1 Egyptian Goose on LR North, 1 Common Tern on the north island of LR South and 1 Mediterranean Gull on LR South. Also 4 Lapwing (Robin Trundle).
7th July
The 7th CES session landed 30 new birds and 17 re-traps, very encouraging after the recent run of low scores. The number of New For Year birds among the retraps was especially good – 8 in all, of which half were Reed Warblers. The full total of NFY birds (38) was better than visit 7 in 2011 (36) and 2012 (31) but some way off last year (46). Although there were only 2 new Reed Warblers today the extra 4 NFY birds helped to make the total to date more respectable but they are still way off the average for the previous years – over 70% down (Roger Peart).
Meanwhile, the Sandwich Tern was still present on the LR South this morning along with a Common Tern. Also a Common Sandpiper present on the island at the north end of the LR South (George Green).
4th July
Singles of Sandwich and Common Terns present this morning (George Green).
29th June
Just 30 birds, including re-traps, were caught for Constant Effort Site ringing this morning. Robins featured heavily, plus a few Blackcap juvs and also 3 juv Chiffchaffs. Reed Warblers just about featured with 1 adult and 3 juveniles. We also had a Jay, which was something a little different, as although several around, we seldom catch.
Also a dead Water Shrew (note: one was found in a similar spot last year) & Roesel’s Bush Crickets were out in force (Terry Elborn).
24th June
No sign of the Turnstone, but there were two Common Sandpipers on the north island and 3 Lapwing of the south island of the north lake. 10+Pied Wagtails (Martin Wood)