Stanwell Moor - 10 June 2013

We started the afternoon with a walk up to the flash. We spend a short while looking for chicks and discovered that the two Lapwing chicks ringed on the 8th were still there and growing fast. We found that the Little Ringed Plovers had now moved down to the water and were behaving as though they had chicks somewhere along the grassy margins. It took longer than we would have liked to find just one chick, not the one done on the 1st of June, but consistent in size to having possibly been from the same brood. We were reasonably sure that there was a least one more but didn't want to cause any further disturbance.

 

Little Ringed Plover chick

We went back to the main lake, putting up a run of three nets in the reedbed and two on the adjacent spit. It was a very slow start with a retrap Reed Warbler being the only bird from the nets until almost 90 minutes later when the Starlings began to assemble for the evening roost. We got 9 Starlings in one strike, then found a Jay and a juvenile Robin in he reedbed nets. The roost amounted to 500+ but no other birds found their way into the nets.

 Vociferous Starling youngster

Smart male Starling

Total - 12 (3)

Little Ringed Plover - 1

Lapwing - 0(2)

Robin - 1

Reed Warbler - 0(1)

Jay -1

Starling - 9