Scrape update





Restharrow scrape has enjoyed a few waders over the last week or so in the form of common, green and wood sandpiper and a little ringed plover. Today only the LRP and the green sand was present (whilst I was there) but they did come onto the islands near the hide so allowed a few record shots to be obtained.

Green sandpiper

Little ringed plover

The little grebes on the scrape are taking food to the nest (mainly leaches as far as I can see) though one chick has been seen. Other than that it’s only common stuff including a flock of ~30 grey lag.

The ringers have been pumping Backsand for several days now and at last some mud has appeared (though with the weather forecast it could well disappear again!). I went down there yesterday from 11.00 till 1.00 (all wrong for the tides) because a spoonbill had been seen by the ringers when they went to check the pump early morning. They had also seen a few greenshank and green sandpipers. Needless to say that when I got there there was no sign of the spoonbill and the only waders present were 3 oyster catchers – 2 adults and a near fully grown juvenile.

There is a little grebe down there but I have no idea whether it/they have a nest/young.

There were 3 little egrets in residence so I spent the morning trying to photograph them. One in particular spent most of its time in front of the hide but the light was poor with numerous showers so despite getting into some very interesting poses the images quality suffered markedly (especially with noise).

Little egret

The dragonfly pool has now been dug and the excavated sand/soil graded into a shallow bank. Now we have to wait for it to fill and the insects to move in.