Friends of Priorslee Lake Wildlife Site: 12 Feb 23

Priorslee Lake and The Flash

6.0°C > 8.0°C: Mostly cloudy. Calm start; light SSE wind later. Very good visibility.

Sunrise: 07:35 GMT

* = a photo from today.

Priorslee Balancing Lake: 06:20 – 09:15

(37th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- Great Crested Grebes have already starting to hide in the reeds making accurate counts hard. At least three pairs with an apparent additional lone bird.
- Fewer Black-headed Gulls today: indeed fewer gulls of all species.
- Three Cormorants noted. One seen leaving at 07:30 suggesting it might have roosted here. I certainly did not notice it arrive. Two others arrived separately much later with one leaving soon afterwards.
- One of the Grey Herons was unusually confiding and stayed while I walked past within six feet of it – twice!

Birds noted flying over here:
- 8 Wood Pigeons
- 1 Collared Dove
- 4 Herring Gulls
- 20 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- 22 Jackdaws
- 78 Rooks

Counts from the lake area:
- 11 Canada Geese: of these one departed
- 2 Greylag Geese
- 2 + 4 Mute Swans
- 2 (1♂) Gadwall again
- 8 (6♂) Mallard
- 3 (2♂) Pochard
- 17 (9♂) Tufted Duck
- 13 Moorhens
- 94 Coots
- 7 Great Crested Grebes
- *c.275 Black-headed Gulls
- 1 Herring Gull
- 3 Cormorants: see notes
- 2 Grey Herons: one departed

Noted on / around the street lamp poles pre-dawn
- *2 Dotted Border moths (Agriopis marginaria)
- several 'plumed midges'
- several 'winter midges'
- *1 small beetle
- 1 Nursery Web Spider (Pisaura mirabilis)
- *1 stretch spider Tetragnatha sp.
- *2 other spider sps.

Later:
Nothing of note

An adult Black-headed Gull almost in summer breeding plumage: just a few white areas on the front of the head to moult out. The most advanced bird I have seen this year so far.

The traditional 'branch in the way' mars this Long-tailed Tit photo.

Some Great Tits are quite yellow: this male is not. A male because of wide 'zip' down its belly.

There were at least 40 Siskins in the trees by the Teece Drive gate with some of them dropping down to drink from the Wesley Brook. It was quite gloomy in the trees and this was my best attempt at a photo. I could not see in to the brook without flushing the birds as they drank.

A not particularly 'dotted' Dotted Border moth (Agriopis marginaria).

Even had it been a sharp photo it would have been an even less 'dotted' Dotted Border moth.

Today's unknown beetle sp. and different in shape from either of those noted yesterday.

Perhaps the same stretch spider Tetragnatha sp. as yesterday. A somewhat better view.

Unidentified spider #1.

Unidentified spider #2. An interesting crazy-paving pattern on the abdomen and streaking on the side of the metathorax. Does not help me identify it.

(Ed Wilson)

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The Flash: 09:20 – 10:30

(34th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- The drake Pochard seemed to have gone. Perhaps it was the additional bird at the lake?

Birds noted flying over here:

None

Noted on / around the water
- 37 Canada Geese
- 2 Greylag Geese
- 2 + 1 Mute Swans
- 40 (27♂) Mallard
- 2 (1♂) Common Teal again
- 1 all-white duck (Peking(?) Duck)
- *39 (22♂) Tufted Duck
- 3 (0♂) Goosander
- 1 Water Rail: *heard
- 20 Moorhens again
- 56 Coots
- 3 Great Crested Grebes
- 34 Black-headed Gulls
- 2 Herring Gulls: immatures
- 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull: adult
- *5 Cormorants: four departed
- 1 Grey Heron

Noted on / around the street lamp poles:
- *1 Dotted Border moth (Agriopis marginaria)

Elsewhere:

Nothing of note

A duck Tufted Duck swimming through water with an 'oil-painting' quality about the light patterns.

I heard what I believed to be a Water Rail giving its less common 'pip-pip-pip-....' call which I am not totally familiar with. There is no point having technology and not using it so I switched on my phone app. to see what it could hear. This is the result. Water Rail confirmed.

A Cormorant day today. There were five in the trees on the island when I arrived. Here are numbers one and two.

Number three.

Number four.

And number five. Much preening going on!

Photographing fishing Cormorants often ends up with a result like this...

...or like this! Note the long tail on the water. The similar but smaller Shag which almost exclusively fishes in salt water leaps clear of the water as it dives.