Finally - a piece of the action.

The last few weeks have seen an unprecedented influx of American waders into the county. For this we can thank Irene and Katia for creating havoc in the north Atlantic weather systems. Almost every patch of mud in Cornwall has hosted some leggy shorebird or other from across the pond - but not our patches of mud at Windmill Farm.

Today was misty and eerily quiet. Having decided there was nothing about, I was idly and, it has to be said, carelessly trudging along the edge of our little scrape, which is almost dry, musing that I have seen Pectoral Sandpipers in the most unlikely of places. Not five seconds later, I heard a distinct call - "prrrt". I looked around in search of the culprit and there it was - a Pectoral Sandpiper, not 10 yards away. Three feet from it was another! We all froze. I ever so slowly down sat down. After an age, they decided I wasn't a threat and much to my relief carried on feeding.  After admiring them for a few minutes I slowly withdrew back into the mist and left them to it. 

The light was hopeless for photography today, so here are a couple of shots I got over the weekend of adders enjoying the warmth of the brief Indian summer. The top one is a youngster, about eight inches long, and below is an adult male.

 

Poser

Spotted Redshank on the Plantlife pond this morning.

Bring your own snacks....

Participants in a recent dragonfly workshop at the farm collected lots of dragonfly exuviae from around the ponds and brought them up to the information centre for examination. In case you're not aware, exuviae are the external shells of the aquatic larvae. When they're ready to fly, the larvae climb out of the water, usually up a rush-stem or similar, and slowly emerge as adult dragonflies, leaving these shells behind. The species and even the sex of the dragonfly can be established from studying them. Most of these are Emperors.




This box of exuviae has drawn a few wry comments in the visitors' book, of which my favourite is:

"Great place, don't think much of the crisps tho!"

We've had a few birdy highlights in recent days, including a Wryneck along the access road just 30 yards from the gate - it scraped on to my personal reserve bird-list by kindly perching in the hedge between the track and one of our fields. Nineteen Green Sandpipers feeding together around the edge of the Plantlife pond was a huge surprise. They are regular migrants at this time of year but generally in ones or twos. A flock of this size is very unusual anywhere.



The Black Kite that was hanging around down at The Lizard village made a couple of flyovers and, finally, we had a new species for the farm in the form of two Spotted Redshanks.

The third Emperor

Following the extremely rare Vagrant Emperor dragonflies that turned up at the farm in late April, and with the "bog-standard" Emperor a common resident species, we completed a 2011 hat-trick this week when a male Lesser Emperor was found. Although it's a rare migrant to Britain, recorded for the first time as recently as 1996, this is our second record following one in 2004. Lesser Emperors occur throughout southern Europe.

After I'd waited for about 15 minutes today, it duly appeared over the northern-most of our two specially-designed dragonfly ponds. It gave great views down to 10 feet as it cruised up and down, doing its best to evade aerial attacks by the Emperors. It failed to land whilst I was there but it was more obliging for Dougy and he got this rather good photo:


Later, he found two or three Migrant Hawkers along the boardwalk:



Thanks to Dougy for those photos. I had to make do with shots of a pair of Common Darters mating in flight, one of the scarce Red-veined Darters (at least two present today) and a female Emperor laying eggs in the pond:

Farming for finches and warblers....and why it's not possible to please everybody!

Here are a few photos of our 12 acres of arable fields, where we have the best show of wild and cultivated seed-bearing plants that we've had for several years. These will become a gigantic bird-table over next winter. Meanwhile, they are full of bees and other insects, and there are always a few Sedge Warblers and Whitethroats foraging in them at this time of year.





There have been plenty of entries recently in the visitors' feedback book in the reserve's information centre. On the whole, it seems that we're getting things right and most people comment favourably on such things as the tranquillity, landscape, bird-song, flowers and butterflies. Of course, opinions vary on some things, as the following extracts prove!

"What a shame you do not allow dogs"

"Dog-free - what a joy!"

"No dogs - bliss!"

".....dismayed to see a no dogs sign"

"Some of us think no dogs is bliss"

"Well done on an excellent trail"

"I tried to follow the trail guide....after walking up and down the fields fruitlessly for an hour I came back"

"It was easy to find our way round and it wasn't suitable for dogs"

"....well sign-posted walk around"

"Thank goodness no dogs"