The Joys of 'Patch' Birding!

Hill Court Farm Nature Reserve (aka Longdon Marsh) is managed by Worcestershire Wildlife Trust (WWT) and is a mixture of wetland, grassland, woodland and hedgerow and has a variety of breeding and non-breeding birds throughout the year.

As well as visiting regularly for my own birding, I do a monthly Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) count for the BTO; a count consists of recording all the different species and how many individuals are present, this data then gets forwarded onto the BTO and WWT.

I'm hoping to do regular posts on my blog with updates of what I observe as the year progresses - I'll start off with the last few weeks...

By early April, most of the Lapwing which wintered on the reserve have departed, though the resident birds will remain, hopefully, to breed. 

The waterfowl activity on the scrape can attract predators like this Peregrine Falcon. It wasn't successful in catching anything, possibly that as an immature bird, it was inexperienced at hunting. 

I hadn't noticed this Brown Hare as I was walking, it obviously noticed me - it stood bolt up right before dashing off. 

The reserve and the surrounding farm fields often flood, and during winter can freeze over, creating a beautiful ice sheet, stretching across the whole of the marsh. 

I have seen a male Mandarin duck on the reserve and a few days ago a female turned up too. 

Mandarin ducks were brought over from Asia in the 19th century for private collections. The ducks soon escaped these collections and now breed throughout England in lakes and large ponds. 

I haven't seen Snipe often on the reserve, so I was really pleased to watch this one, as it zoomed out from the undergrowth and landed a short way off in the grass. 

A few days ago, two drake Garganey were sighted on the main scrape. They are an uncommon sight in the UK, and are usually seen passing through on their way from sub-Saharan Africa to central Europe to breed. Small numbers also breed in the UK, mostly in East Anglia and Southern England.

(They're quite tricky to see in the photo above as they were very distant - they are on the far right and left of the picture)  

They are really beautiful ducks...even when they are dozing! 

The Hill Court Farm reserve is a great place though with only one short-ish path.

Hopefully next month there'll be a few more spring migrants to be seen.