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Huge numbers of house martins and lesser numbers of swallows over the reserve yesterday morning - probably several thousand birds but in truth impossible to count. Teal and wigeon numbers appear to very slowly picking up, and the hedges are still busy with migrant warblers (mostly blackcaps and chiffchaffs...

Graham, one of our volunteers, captured this grim action on the north brooks yesterday - a grey heron eating a juvenile moorhen. Not something you see everyday and an illustration of the heron's opportunism. A wood sandpiper is still present but generally elusive - easier to find are green and...

On the heath over the last few days have been a number of black darter dragonflies - they have an amusing way of avoiding sunburn (or whatever it is they are doing) and it is called the obelisk position. It is a handstand, as far as I can tell - shame it isn't an olympic sport. Black darter was first...

Finally, a warm, still, cloudless morning to enjoy on our monthly waterfowl count. Lots of lying water remains on some of the brooks providing good feeding for numerous herons and egrets. Highlights were at least 7 garganey (this constitutes a large flock!) on one of pools on the south brooks amongst...

At 08.00 this morning (in the sunshine !) the black pond on the edge of the heath was good for just-emerged emerald damselflies (see below). The walk to the pond along the bridleway was also interesting - 2 or juv green woodpeckers noisily pursuing a parent, marsh tit, a robin feeding some just out of...

Still plenty water on site, despite our attempts at getting rid of some. The recent passage of various waders continues - black-tailed godwits, green sandpipers, greenshank, little ringed plovers and common sandpipers. On the the larger pools on the north brooks a few teal and shoveler are present, along...

First significant passage/appearance of sand martins and swallows occured over the weekend - the cloudy weather of saturday influenced things and small groups over the north brooks all day. A few house martins were also seen. Blackcaps are now singing from various points around the site, with little...

Around the trail/hedges this morning were many migrant warblers - mostly whitethroats as far as I could tell, but also redstart, lesser whitethroat and willow warbler. On the north brooks, 2 ruff, 1 greenshank, 2 little ringed plover, 1 dunlin and at least 8 green sandpipers amongst about 100 lapwings...

At least one juvenile marsh harrier was hunting across the south brooks yesterday morning - this is typical August bird for us here and this one was right on cue. If previous years are anything to go by, it will stay around for some weeks. A young cuckoo was also present yesterday, eating cinnabar caterpillars...