Catcott Lows
2 GWE’s keeping close company on scrape this morning. One had purple rings the other didn’t appear to be ringed. 3 roe deer and cattle egrets on far side of reserve.
A Little Egret was on the new ‘scrape’ bank for 5 minutes this morning busily picking out small items from the water. A Green Sand Piper flew over but didn’t stop!
Aug 10 : View of completed works here
Apparently, the first island visitor was a Stock Dove.
As a further further update. Scrape has 3 Islands plus reed bed. And is almost full of water. Cattle still on far side of reserve.
Digger is currently flattening mounds of peat extracted.l
A couple of pictures are on my Flickr site for those interested.
As a further update. This morning the scrape had been extended past the reed bed and some reeds removed. It is already starting to fill with water. Cattle egrets and all the cattle were right over the back in front of the South Drain bridge.
This is going to a great facility for Somerset.
The view from the hide on the morning of August 4th….
....but I only had two Cattle Egrets for company, rather than the 10 that Alan found later in the day.
An evening visit produced 10 Cattle Egrets but they were all of 400 metres from the hide. the whole area of the Lows north and south of the centre ditch has now beeen topped. This should improve visibility in the Autumn when hopefully water will appear attracting wildfowl. Importantly work has commenced on the promised ‘Scrape’ which is very close to the car park hide! This will mean a quiet approach to the hide will be needed and I would suggest blocking off the screen to the left of the hide to prevent disturbance from that area and maybe screening off the adjacent gate! Take a look when you are passing.