5 Sep 21

Priorslee Lake

13.0°C: Patchy cloud soon gave way to rather hazy sun. Light NE wind. Moderate visibility.

Sunrise: 06:26 BST

A third day mostly spent at an air event at Sywell in Northants. Another abbreviated report. Back to normal tomorrow?

Priorslee Lake: 04:50 – 08:10

(196th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- A pair and a single drake Shoveler noted: the pair flew off when a back-firing car put all the gulls to flight.
- A drake Wigeon flew through my binocular view as I was checking the large party of >500 gulls. I had not seen it earlier and I could not relocate it.
- A Collared Dove had unusually strayed away from the confines of the estate and was sitting on one of the lamps around the football field.
- Many more gulls today:
---- Black-headed Gulls were on the football field (51) and also on the lake (>50) from c.06:30.
---- The early passage of post-roost gulls put 5 Herring and 41 Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the water with another 152 'large gulls' passing over. All these appar4ently departed by 06:45
---- By 07:30 there were at least 230 Black-headed Gulls, 11 Herring Gulls, one Yellow-legged Gull and 350 Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the water with other birds milling about overhead. Soon afterwards a boy-racer's car back-fired in Castle Farm Way (been there, done that!) and all the gulls took off and mostly headed off NE. Whether it was these or others that were drifting back by 08:00 is hard to say

By far my largest gull count so far post-breeding.

Overhead:
- 6 Canada Geese: outbound together
- 12 Greylag Geese: outbound in three small groups
- 2 (1♂) Mallard
- 3 Stock Doves: single and duo
- 123 Wood Pigeons
- 20 Black-headed Gulls
- >150 large gulls
- 4 Jackdaws
- 9 Starlings: together

Hirundines etc., noted:
- 2 Sand Martins: flew E 07:40: unusual date here
- House Martin(s) heard high over the football field 06:40

Warblers noted:
- 11 Chiffchaffs: five in song
- 2 Blackcaps

Count from the lake area:
- 2 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- 3 (2♂) Shoveler: pair flew off
- 1 (1♂) (Eurasian) Wigeon: flew off?
- 20 (12♂) Mallard
- 5 (2♂) Tufted Duck again
- 6 Moorhens
- 65 Coots
- 10 + 5 (3 broods) Great Crested Grebes again
- >230 Black-headed Gulls
- 16 Herring Gulls
- 1 Yellow-legged Gull
- >350 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- 2, possibly 3 Grey Herons: one of these was chased away; one flew in / returned

On the lamps pre-dawn:

Moths only:
- 1 Notch-wing Button (Acleris emargana)
- 1 Straw Dot (Rivula sericealis)

Also noted
- 1 Hawker dragonfly on the wing by 06:30
- 2 Grey Squirrels

A very hazy start with a red sun struggling to get through the thin cloud layer.

At the lake this duck Shoveler was pretending to be asleep but keeping a wary eye on me. Ducks are able to put half their brain to sleep while keeping watch with one eye and the rest of their brain. This drake is in the so-called eclipse plumage while it replaces its flight feathers. Here the easiest way to tell it is a drake is the small exposed patch of bright green which is the speculum in the wing. On ducks this is a grey-green colour. Less obvious is the more rufous-tone to the flanks.

A Grey Heron performs from the buoy for its admiring fans of Black-headed Gulls.

The result of the car back-firing: the gulls take to flight – these are just some of the c.350 mainly Lesser Black-backed Gulls heading for what they hope will be a safer location.

A rather battered-looking Notch-wing Button moth (Acleris emargana) is being eyed-up by a (rather out of focus) Paroligolophus agrestis harvestman – the harvestman with the first and third pairs of legs much shorter than the other two pairs.

In the Priorslee Avenue tunnel was this rather different-looking Square-spot Rustic moth (Xestia xanthographa). There are many 'rustic-type' moths but this species, for all the variability of the ground colour, is the only one that has two white marks on each wing.

And here is another specimen.

Also in the Priorslee Avenue tunnel was this cranefly. The wing-markings suggest it is Tipula lateralis, though since discovering the new UK cranefly identification book has 300 species perhaps it is not that simple! Seems to have been in the wars as it only has three and a bit legs.

(Ed Wilson)

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On this day can be found via the yearly links in the right-hand column.

Sightings from previous years without links are below

2013
Priorslee Lake
Green Sandpiper
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)

2012
Priorslee Lake
Yellow-legged Gull
(John Isherwood)

2011
Priorslee Lake
Common Sandpiper
(Ed Wilson))

2006
Priorslee Lake
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)

2005
Priorslee Lake
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)