Cormorants Nesting at Paxton Pits

Nesting season for the Cormorants is in full swing at Paxton.

Paxton Pits Work Party

15 Paxton Pits volunteers spent 3 hours clearing willows and brambles from an area valuable for its invertebrate banks -ridges of sand left from gravel workings in that area in previous years. The banks were found to have a very rich invertebrate population when surveyed a few years ago but have now become quite overgrown. As well as vertical banks we also found a valuable small pond and an area which perhaps we will avoid in surveys as warns of quicksands

 

Paxton Pits Snow, Ice and Birds

With the Pits themselves  frozen, the water birds have congregated by the river, while smaller birds are struggling to find food in the snow covered vegetation. Only the Heron remained on Hernonry South Lake. The Barn Owl was out quartering around midday while the Goldcrest was tirelessly hunting on the river bank. Bright sunny day so the views were magical with the ice patterns and frost on top of snow

Paxton Pits Birds

 While the numbers of birds and species on the water at Paxton Pits yesterday were impressive, the song birds were almost entirely absent during our Third Thursday public walk with the only sightings being a flock of blue tits and long-tailed tits and a friendly but not very healthy-looking robin. We watched several very confiding young Grey Herons, one with a damaged bill, around 30 Little Egrets, a Great White Egret, numerous Cormorants, Gadwall and Black-headed Gulls, Wigeon, Great Crested Grebe, Lapwing and Kingfisher. White balance control was made quite difficult by the very reflective green algae in the shallow water and the overcast conditions .

Fun with the Kingfishers

This young kingfisher (white tip to beak) was one of a party of 4 kingfishers flying around and fishing at Paxton yesterday. It made several dives but wasn't successful! I used the fast drive to record consecutive flight shots as it dived and then aligned them to make a composite (image 2). The dive down shows how the speed increases as it dives down (greater spacing of consecutive images). Unfortunately the return to perch was not so successful composite as the bird flew forward of the focus zone (my camera is not good enough autofocus to track this). The last two are of the adult male (longer completely black beak, unspeckled breast etc) in the distance.