Eccleston Mere

Arctic Tern 1
Water Rail 1 in SW corner
Whitethroat 1 singing
Blackcap 2 singing
Willow Warbler 5 singing
Chiffchaff 2 singing
Common Sandpiper 1
Oystercatcher 2
Swallow 10
Sand Martin 5
Gadwall 7 (5 males, 2 females)
Tufted Duck 21 (14 males, 8 females)

Bats: Daubenton's Bat. It was still quite light at 8pm, and I was surprised to see a Daubenton's Bat feeding over the water. It was a rare opportunity to watch the species at close range and in almost daylight, so I watched it for about 30 minutes. I normally see them just as a silhouette at night. It had a dark head contrasting with a lighter body and wings, and it looked almost to be flapping it's wings at a disproportionate rate to the speed of it's fight. It was seemingly oblivious to the ducks and grebes, and at one point it flew right between a pair of displaying Great Crested Grebes, clearly startling the birds! Daubenton's are meant to take insects just above the surface of the water, only rarely off the surface itself, yet I saw this bat ripple the water on several occasions. I was also surprised at its range, which was from the jetty right over to the other side of the mere.




Arctic Tern. Notice the transluscent primaries on the underwing view, the long tail streamers and the short blood red bill. Also, in the field, there is a sharp contrast between the snowy white underwing and the dark trailing edge to the primaries, though that isn't particularly apparent in these photographs. Beautiful birds, this is presumably the same bird that I saw at Carr Mill Dam this morning, though there have been up to three Arctic Terns at Eccleston Mere over the past few days.