Voles get bold & great crested grebe visits
A week of sun and light showers has kept the plants at WWT Arundel fresh and flowering. Yellow is taking over as the dominant colour now: dense heads of common tansy, spiky ragwort and bright fleabane crowd the edges of the pathways through the reserve. Fleabane and ragwort are both in the daisy family but the petals (ray floret) on ragwort are farther apart, giving ragwort a weedier appearance. The centre (disc floret) of fleabane flowers is quite large and the ray florets very short so they resemble a fringe surrounding the flower’s centre.
The summer season continues to be a great one for the water vole population on the reserve. Last Monday during one boat trip on Wetland Discovery our wildlife guide Beth spotted eleven water voles for the visitors to photograph. We think that may be a record for one trip! The water voles at the dragonfly pond have become used to visitors walking over the footbridge that they feed quite openly at the edge of the reeds. Our stream of visitors on the boardwalk also scare off any predators so the water voles are very bold, appearing often. On my walk around the site last Thursday I watched a pair feed and swim for 20 minutes. The surface of the pond on the right is littered with bits of phragmites that the voles have gathered - the edges chewed to a tell tale 45 degree angle. The voles create small feeding piles and when the water level rises the piles tend to float away.
On the waters near the Ramsar hide the little egrets are still showing in the mornings along with herons. We had 5 herons on Thursday. Increasing numbers of teal have been coming into the Scrape Hide, wearing their winter plumage. They are a bit early and a reminder that autumn is around the corner! A juvenile great crested grebe spent the afternoon at the Scrape hide on Sunday. He will likely remain inland for a bit before joining other great crested grebes along the sea coast for the winter. On Jan 21, 2011 a record 525 great crested grebe were counted off the coast of Worthing.
