Grizzled Skippers and breeding birds

I celebrated the commencement of the bank holiday weekend by looking for Grizzled Skippers on the disused railway line at Alverton on Friday afternoon. This section was worked on over the winter (mainly scrub clearance), and whilst there is plenty of ideal looking habitat, I could find no skippers... A quick check of Kilvington West Lake produced the drake Red-crested Pochard, at least one young Oystercatcher on the island, and a pair of Shelduck with 14 ducklings. 

Alverton Disused Railway

On Saturday morning I had stroll round the patch; the summer doldrums already seem to have set in, so I occupied myself by checking on how various nesting species were doing; the Kingfisher nest still seems to be active, but two of both the Coot and Great Crested Grebe nests on Mons Pool had been abandoned. Better were two families of Shelduck on the Silt Lagoon - one pair with 8 ducklings, and a second with just one. Better still were two Turtle Doves purring concurrently. 

Shelduck family

I had another session out looking for Grizzled Skippers in the afternoon, this time targetting the Newark to Cotham Sustrans route just south of Bowbridge Road, finding 2 GS on the Sustrans path itself and 2 more in the adjacent field headland, where I discovered them in 2014. I then went and had an explore of Hawton Works Grassland, which I've been meaning to check for GS for the last couple of years. And success: I found four individuals in three discrete locations, along with a single egg, proving they are indeed breeding there. These are slightly further north than the individuals on the Sustrans, so become the most northerly (non-introduced) individuals in Notts, if not Britain, I believe. 

Grizzled Skipper

Hawton Works

Hawton Works Grassland is a big site, so there is plenty of scope for it to support a good population of GS. Unfortunately, however, part of this site on the western side has recently been ploughed up, and turned into an arable field. From a Grizzled Skipper perspective, this area was probably not very suitable for them (being quite coarse, scrubby grassland), and the better, flowery grassland on a former tip area has survived. However, the ploughed up area used to hold breeding Barn Owl, Grey Partridge and Grasshopper Warbler, and wintering Short-eared Owl, Woodcock and Snipe. But not any more.  

Habitat, lost

Today, and some gentle birding was had at Meering Marsh. There has evidently been a mass hatching of Coots since last visit, with at least 9 cootlings across three pairs, and another 4 birds still sitting. Added to this were two young Lapwing, which is fantastic news; there had been an adult acting like there was a nest but I hadn't been able to see a sitting bird, so I'm particularly pleased with these new arrivals. A quick check of Mons Pool from the new viewing screen produced a Ruff.

The new viewing screen at Mons Pool