Sunday 14 July 2013

Another great visit to blacktoft sands!

We woke up at 5:30am to get to Blacktoft which was about a 45min journey.

On the way we got an unexpected surprise, when we were coming down the road I noticed something sitting on a sign, as we rode past it I noticed that it was a Little owl! So we pulled into a lay by at the side of the road to take some photos but as we got our cameras out he had flew away. What a start to the day all ready!

As we arrived at Blacktoft, we walked down the bank to get in the reserve and in the field next to it was a Female Roe deer after about a couple of mins of watching it we saw a Female marsh harrier pass over our heads. When we got to the first hide we put our things down and stayed in the hide for at least an hour, on the lake which was in front of the hide there was quite a few avocets and black headed gulls with chicks and right on the far end of the lake was two common sandpipers. After a while my dad noticed something on one of the scrapes it turned out to be a stunning black tailed godwit.
Black tailed godwit
 
After a little while a little egret dropped in which spooked most of the gulls and the godwit. When we were watching the little egret I noticed a bunch of birds land in the middle of the lake, when I looked most of them were black headed gulls but then i saw something different in the middle of them it was another three black tailed godwits!
 
After that I looked along the reeds to see if there was anything there and then I saw something fly to the front of the reeds it was a bearded tit and not soon after a few more of them came to the front too!
 
After that we went to visit some other hides and in one of them there was more avocets with young, two Dunlin, about five redshanks and right at the front of the scrape was thirteen spotted redshanks! Also as we were watching them another Marsh harrier flew over. I scanned the reeds again to see if there was any more bearded tits and then I saw another two of them fly around the reeds.
Juv Avocet
After that we decided to go and have a look at what the reserve had caught in their moth traps, They had some absolute stunners they had Elephant hawkmoth, Large Emerald, poplar hawkmoth, garden tiger and much more beautiful moths!
Elephant hawkmoth
 
After that we decided to check out one last hide, In this one there was at least five Grey herons and a bit later on another little egret flew in! Also we got great views of a Female marsh harrier which flew right over the reed bed.
Little egret
 
After that we went home after a very enjoyable day!




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