A
Teal has been around for at least three or four months now with an area of leucism on both sides of its head. When I first saw it it was in eclipse with the same white markings, so its been interesting to see it moulting into breeding plumage. It also has small areas of white in the wing and on the outer tail feathers.
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| Teal |
On today's WeBS count, a
Kingfisher was showing nicely at the Canoe Safari and four
Spotted Redshanks were on the Saline Lagoon along with eight
Greenshank. A few additions to the 2015 patch list include a
Raven, a
Stock Dove, 11 displaying
Goldeneye and a
Bittern on Thursday afternoon. Still plenty of easy ones to get; Coal Tit, Treecreeper and Mistle Thrush to name a few.
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| Kingfisher |
Work over the last week has included all the usual stuff like entering the wildlife we see onto a database and doing the dead bird patrol. This week we had to train other members of staff how to take swabs of dead birds in case they found any at the weekend.
We've also been clearing a bank to provide an increased area for Water Voles to breed and feed on. We started off checking for signs on Monday - none in the area we were going to clear, but we found food stashes in an area of sedge adjacent. We started off by strimming the bramble away and then cut down the 25 odd trees. All of the branches were made into hedges to provide a place for insects to winter, and the logs are hopefully going to be sold.
The tree stumps will be poisoned, and throughout the spring the sedge should begin to grow.
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