Thursday 15 August 2013

RUFF still present at College Lake BBOWT


















THURSDAY 15 AUGUST
 
Much cooler than of late with a showery westerly airstream dominating the weather
 
Not a lot happening today, other than 5 Common Redstarts and 8 Spotted Flycatchers on the Quainton Hills (per Tim Watts), a Common Redstart at Hardmead (Rob Norris) and a couple of Greenshanks at Manor Farm.
 
I decided to return to COLLEGE LAKE BBOWT where the juvenile RUFF was present for its second day. Although favouring the dense clusters of Purple Loostrife to hide and feed in, it eventually flew from the spit and landed close to the Octagon Hide. I took my cue, made my way to the hide and fired off around 60 shots of the bird - generally feeding at between 100-120 yards distance (see images above). The Lapwings were not keen on it and chased it back to the spit after ten minutes.
 
Lapwings had actually increased heavily in number - 107 being tallied - whilst a single Common Sandpiper was the only other wader to be seen.
 

Just 5 Mute Swans remain; two broods of Tufted Duck (a 6 and a 7 - see pix), Red Kite overhead, 9 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (including 5 juveniles), 14 Common Terns and 3 juvenile YELLOW WAGTAILS.






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