Warm, dry and sunny, SW 4 - The past couple of days have been particularly windy reaching near gale force strength yesterday bringing down several large sycamore branches in our local park and also setting the Lade tern raft adrift; the accompanying rain, though, was most welcome. This morning`s Ted walk at Lade in blustery weather conditions delivered the expected Swifts hawking low over the lakes but little else. Moving onto the reserve and from the Screen hide hundreds more Swifts and hirundines fizzed over ARC airspace along with half a dozen Hobbies that put on a spectacular show swooping low in front of the hide and perching on the dead willow brush by Tower pits. Whilst watching their aerial antics several Common Terns, Black-headed Gulls and Avocets were flushed by passing Marsh Harriers over their nesting islands, while Buzzard, Cuckoo, Shelduck, Shoveler, Pochard were all noted, plus my first Emperor Dragonfly of summer in the car park. The strong winds appear to have played havoc with the Cormorant colony with most of the exposed nests on the southern side lost or damaged, although the nests at the more sheltered northern end of the colony near the pines seem to have survived.
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