Little egrets, grey herons and cormorants are fishing

Little egrets are roosting to the right of the Ramsar hide. They break up in the morning and spread around the reserve.

Wardens notes - a snapshot of what is around the reserve plus the week's wildlife surveys.

Mon 7 Oct

Scrape hide: 1 water rail
Ramsar hide: wet grassland opposite - 25 snipe flushed by working wardens.

Tues 8 Oct
Daytime Dragonfly Survey: 90 minute walking survey of 14 sections of the reserve

• 13 common darter dragonflies
• 7 migrant hawker dragonflies

Arun Riverife: 5 tufted duck
Lapwing hide: 1 lapwing
Ramsar/Sand Martin hide: grey heron, 2 greylag geese, 3 cormorants, 4 lapwings, 1 kingfisher, 2 Egyptian gese, 2 little egeret, 2 shelducks, 7 tufted ducks, 1 shoveler, 14 black-headed gulls, 3 pochards.
Wetland Discover: 6 tufted ducks.
Scrape hide: 2 grey herons, 1 shoveler, 1 teal.
Reedbed hide: 3 little egrets.

Wed 9 Oct
Scrape hide: 1 wigeon, 1 gadwall
Lapwing hide: 2 gadwall, 1 grey heron
Ramsar / Sand Martin hide: 1 teal, 2 shelducks, 3 shoveler, 1 gadwall, 1 little egret, 3 pochards, 3 tufted ducks, 2 Egyptian geese, 2 lapwing, 28 common gull.


Thurs 10 Oct
Evening Bat Survey
Seeing fewer larger bats as they are off to warmer climes, larger wings can take them further some winter in Africa. We picked up no Nathusius' pipistrelles, they’ve likely left for southern France/Europe.

• We had one whiskered bat
• 10+ Daubenton’s bats over the lagoon at the Scrape Hide.
• 1 noctule bat

Wetland Discovery: 2 gadwall.
Scrape hide: 6 gadwall, 1 wigeon.
Reedbed: 3 blue tit, 2 dunnock, 1 wren, 4 Cetti’s warbler, 1 green woodpecker.
Ramsar/Sand Martin hide: 4 tufted ducks, 2 Egyptian geese, 5 cormorant, 3 little egrets, 1 grey herons, 2 gadwall, 2 shelducks, 1 water rail, 2 snipe, 2 shoveler, 1 little grebe.

Fri 11 Oct
Ramsar/Sand Martin hide: 6 shoveler, 7 gadwall, 4 little egret, 17 tifted ducks, 2 Egyptian geese, 1 cormorant, 1 wigeon.
Woodland Loop: 8 Blue tit, 1 great tit, 2 coal tit, 2 long-tailed tits, 2 wren, 3 chaffinch, 8 goldfinch.

Saturday 12 Oct
Green woodpecker sightings Wetlands Discovery and Tundra exhibit, hunting insects on the ground.
Arun Rverlife – working wardens flushed 12 common snipe and a jack snip.
On path near Lapwing hide in willow scrub – 2 male Cetti’s warbler perched 6 inches apart, singing for territory
Lizzy saw five marsh harriers during walk around at 5.15pm.
Boat Driver Monica had barn owl sightings at 3 pm

Sunday 13 Oct
Chiff chaff sighting
34 common gulls, 8 Med gulls outnumbering the handful of black-headed gulls
No more martins sighted coming through – that’s it for migration moving through , maybe a few stragglers
Sand Martin hide – a brown long-eared bat is roosting inside

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