Shovelers arriving early and in good numbers
Oct 14: The trees of the Offham Hangar above the reserve are showing tints of yellow as the autumn weather turns cooler. Last Wednesday Simon, our boat driver and wildlife guide, spotted a pair of hobbies flying along the hangar and hunting over the reserve. Hobbies eat large insects – the pair was likely hunting the migrant hawkers and common darter dragonflies that are still around.
A nice surprise this October has been the high numbers of shoveller ducks that have been showing up in our daily counts. We have been averaging a dozen a day with a high of nineteen last Friday. In 2012 shoveller numbers didn’t start to build until late November. The shovellers use their spatulate bills to sieve mud for invertebrates and plants. The fact the ducks are here early and are finding enough food to support constant numbers speaks well of the ecosystem of the waters near the Scrape and the Sand Martin hides. The males are now sporting the green heads and chestnut flanks of their winter courting colours.
Snipe numbers are still increasing near the Sand Martin hide and Scrape hides. Kingfishers are still spotted on a regular basis and we have had up to six grey herons here in the mornings.
The new Arun Riverlife area has already become a home to several water voles. We found a water vole latrine in the plants at the edge of the water directly out from the visitor centre windows. A Mediterranean gull was also seen amongst the black-headed gulls on the gravel island during the week.
A stone chat was spotted feeding on the far side of Arun Riverlife on Wednesday. The male has an orangey breast and black head, giving a loud call like two stones being struck together. Stone chats used to be regular autumn visitors at Arundel Wetland Centre but their population crashed locally over the past two colder than average winters.
I saw a group of seventeen house martins moving through the reserve on Sunday and another ten this morning. These stragglers missed the main thrust of the migrating hirundines we had coming through in September.
Paul Steven’s weekly Wildlife Sightings column appears in the Chichester Observer, the Littlehampton Gazette, the Bognor Regis Observer, the Shoreham Herald and the Worthing Herald.
