This Little Grebe catches a lot of fish. In fact the only fish I see these days are the ones in his beak, or that of a Kingfisher.

Click image for larger version.

It must be heading towards Xmas. All they need is a bit of snow…

Here’s that pair of little Grebes (click for bigger as always), swimming across the mere. For once they’re not swimming directly away from my camera lens!

Also, here’s one of the pair of kingfishers. Not a good photo (far away and very dim light) but it’s nice to see them nonetheless – and I have every time I’ve been down recently.

Popped down to the reserve lunchtime today during a lovely sunny spell. Went to my post on the far bridge and waited. Sure enough after 10 minutes, the great spotted woodpecker turned up. I’ve decided that I particularly like the beautiful brightly coloured birds – last year I was interested in the kingfisher but haven’t seen it for months. Anyhow the woodpecker perched for a few seconds on a higher flat branch, possibly assessing the dangers around it (can an ‘it’ assess?) and then flew directly to the spot where I’d seen the small hole before. There was a flurry of what seemed like woodshavings and then it seemed to be going backwards and forwards – whether marking territory or squeezing backwards into its small hole. It then disappeared from sight. Sometime I’ll have to go into the parkland on the other side to get a better view but it’s a bit of a bother. In the next 10 minutes there were a number of visitors to this specific bit of the dead tree tops – it seems quite a social area, though I don’t know how welcome they all are at the meeting – wood pigeons, blackbirds? eating what looked like scrambled egg but I doubt this and magpies. Funny how I perceive birds differently: I really like the “beautiful” ones; I dislike the ugly black ones and I’m just about to appreciate a chicken – for lunch!

There’s usually one Little Grebe on the mere, but at the weekend, I saw a pair for the first time. They’re small and shy and I didn’t have a sufficiently big lens to get a picture of them, but look out for the small brown things diving in the Mere and coming up with fish.

I saw the woodpecker straightaway again today – as I know where to find it and I’ve got the ‘jizz’ of what it looks like. What I saw was a female great spotted woodpecker (red undertail feathers) according to my bird book. It had no red cap or red nape of head. It was virtually at the top of the dead tree trunk and I noticed that it was poking its beak continuously into the same hole. It was hard to see as it was round at the side a bit, so I think I’ll try and look for it some time from the other side of the river. In fact, I’ve discovered I can see these trees from my flat with my stronger binoculars!

I saw a woodpecker today in their usual spot – the tall dead trees at the far end of the site. I have heard a very loud knocking made by a woodpecker in the past but had never seen one till today…This was definitely a woodpecker but was pretty small – smaller than the collared doves in the tree. Looking back on the blog, it is a great spotted woodpecker that has been sighted, as far as I can see – but I would have guessed this was a lesser spotted, from its size

Actually it’s a kyak, which was submerged against the opposite bank of the Ver at the back of the reserve.

Jack fished it out and found these American signal crayfish in residence. The base of that bucket is 18cm across so they’re pretty impressive at full stretch!

Pond dipping was a big attraction with kids and adults alike.

I must say I assumed there wasn’t much life at all in the water, since I never see anything other than fish. How wrong I was! We found the following in one small spot:

• Tadpoles – quite big ones, some with legs

• Small diving beetles – pure black – max 1cm long

• Water louse

• Caddisfly larvae – wrapped in debris, with just head and legs poking out of the front

• Some sort of nymphs

• Three spined sticklebacks, including pregnant males and very showy red bellied males

• A baby newt – found the next day during clear up

• Small shrimps

After all that fun we had a BBQ and the adults played whack a rat with even more vigour than the children.