3 Sep 18

Priorslee Lake: 05:40 – 09:15

15°C > 17°C: Scattered cloud with ground-level fog patches at first. Cloudy increased and lowered. Light N wind. Good visibility at the start, decreasing moderate later.

Sunrise: 06:23 BST

Priorslee Lake: 05:40 – 09:15

(109th visit of the year)

With the commencement of the school year at Holy Trinity Academy the powers that be decided to start making a lot of noise next door at the start of development on the old Celestica site for 400+ houses. All that time in August to make noise without disturbing anyone ...

The Council contractors decided to join in and mow the grass on the erstwhile football field

Bird notes:
- one of the juveniles from the first Great Crested Grebe family was not noted. However they are often away from their parents and away from each other and it is easy to overlook them. I doubt any has fledged as yet
- many large gulls again, today mostly flying SE and not with the Black-headed Gulls that were, as usual, flying mainly W -> E
- just 2 Barn Swallows flew high S
- 5 House Martins seen overhead. Later I searched above the estate where they often gather and noted but 2 birds
- 1 Reed Warbler both seen and heard
- 2 Mistle Thrushes heard ‘rattling’ and then seen in flight. Not usual here after the breeding season when they seem to move to more open country and gather in groups of up to 20 birds. Last recorded by me here on 11 July

Bird totals

Birds noted flying over or flying near the lake:
- 11 Greylag Geese [11 (2 groups) outbound]
- 40 Canada Geese [40 (3 groups) outbound]
- 106 Black-headed Gulls
- 131 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- 2 Stock Doves (pair again)
- 53 Wood Pigeons
- 10 Jackdaws
- 2 Rooks
- 1 Pied Wagtail
- 2 Barn Swallows

Local hirundines etc. noted
- c.5 House Martins

Warblers noted:
- 12 Chiffchaffs
- 1 Blackcaps
- 1 Reed Warblers

The counts from the lake area
- 2 + 3 (1 brood) Mute Swans as usual
- 16 (?♂) Mallards
- 1 (?♂) Tufted Duck again
- 4 + 3 (2 broods) Great Crested Grebes
- 6 + 9 (? broods) Moorhens again
- 97 (near) adult + 7 dependent juvenile Coots
- 88 Black-headed Gulls
- 8 Lesser Black-backed Gulls again

And other notes
- First Pipistrelle-type bats of the year for me here. It is now known that there are several species in the UK. A bat detector is needed to separate them by their unique calls
and
- no butterflies
- no moths
- no damselflies / dragonflies
- no hoverflies
- flies etc. identified
- - 1 Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)
- usual hordes of wasps
- >5 Common Crane-fly (Tipula oleracea) [Daddy Long-legs]
- beetles or bugs noted
- 1 Common Froghopper (Philaenus spumarius)
- spiders noted
- 1 probable Garden Spider (Arameus diadematus)
- no snails etc
- no different plants noted
- mammals seen
- 2 Grey Squirrels
- 4 Pipistrelle-type bats

Even though it soon clouded there was a shepherds’ warning of rain ...

... with just a hint of mist, but then ....

The fog rolled in for a while.

.. And even when the sun came out briefly the mist was enough to blur the landscape looking E.

An industrious adult Great Crested Grebe. Its off-spring were right the other end of the lake and it had a long swim.

No this adult winter Black-headed Gull has not got bent legs and / or stilts. It is standing in the water and the effect is caused by reflections.

Here a juvenile / 1st winter Black-headed Gull. Much of the brown from the juvenile stage is still present on what is likely a late-fledged bird.

The underwing of the same bird. Note the dull orange bill – even adults have black-tips in winter, but the bill is otherwise more red than orange.

Lesson in juvenile large gull identification. This is a Lesser Black-backed Gull and it shows two rows of dark-centred feathers along the wing trailing edge, the outer row being more or less uniformly dark across the width of the wing. By the time it acquires 1st winter plumage the pale fringes on these feathers will have worn away and the upperwing will appear almost uniformly dark. Sadly there were no Herring Gulls for direct comparison. However that species would show the outer row only as dark as here and even then the ends of the inner primaries and outer secondaries would be significantly paler forming what is known as a ‘window’.

And here in flight we see the tail band is distinct from the pale upper-tail. On a similar age Herring Gull these blend in to each other.

Slightly over-enlarged to bring out the salient point. The underwing can look quite pale when it catches the light, but the secondaries are all dark. Not quite sure why the central tail feathers have a slightly different pattern to the outers.

And here again we see the wing pattern.

A portent of Autumn – a Common Crane-fly (Tipula oleracea) [Daddy Long-legs].

Here’s a rather neat-looking fly – and small too sitting on a dew-spattered grass-stem. A check through the literature that is necessarily selective with well over 1000 species in the UK. The combination of red eyes, shiny thorax, pale legs, reflective wings and small size would seem to limit the choice. ‘Seem’ being the operative word and I am none the wiser.

Two for the price of one. The larger is a (common?) Honey Bee (Apis mellifera). The smaller looks like a Common Froghopper (Philaenus spumarius). The scientific name of the latter refers to the ‘cuckoo-spit’ produced by the larvae in spring.

The rose-hips are perhaps the best I can remember despite the almost-drought. Perhaps it is just the shrubs maturing and producing more fruit.

(Ed Wilson)

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On this day..........

2016
Priorslee Lake
Today's Sightings Here

2015
Priorslee Lake
Today's Sightings Here

2014
Priorslee Lake
Today's Sightings Here

2013
Nedge Hill
2 Yellow Wagtails
(John Isherwood)

2011
Priorslee Lake
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)

2009
Priorslee Lake
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)

2006
Priorslee Lake
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)