An Impromptu Visit to Lemsford Springs

16th October 2016

I actually set off for Tewinbury Farm as during my last visit conditions were perfect with about 85% mud in front of the hide which was attracting 4 Common Snipe and a Water Rail. However the recent rains had raised the water levels by a few inches and only about 5% mud remained so there were no birds and to make things worse the shadows were getting long, so time to move on to Lemsford Springs.

The beauty of Lemsford is that, apart from being a superbly managed attractive habitat, the afternoon light is always from the best direction with no trees to cast shadows, and to finish things off the sun came out. There were two Grey Herons present, with this young bird walking around in the cress bed looking for Sticklebacks.

Little Egrets were also well represented with five birds being present and two of them had been caught and fitted with colour rings, HA and HC. So look out for them on your travels and send in any sightings to Barry Trevis, the Warden.

Green Sandpipers also continue to be colour ringed and this colour ringing programme is now the longest running in Europe. It has also been taken to a new level now with some of the birds being GPS-tagged and tracked by satellite, so that we now even know which tree they bred in in Norway. How good is that?

But the star of the show today was this female Kingfisher which dropped in very briefly and perched on a branch right in front of the hide.

Despite was Barry says, I still have to be convinced that Water Rails exist at Lemsford!