Tophill low and North Cave!

Today our plan was to get up at around 7:00am and visit Tophill Low and then on the way back visit North Cave.

When we arrived at Tophill Low, we walked through the gates to the first hide which overlooked a Lake, on the lake there was several Tufted ducks and Mute swans but at the back of some of the tufted ducks there was a Great crested grebe.

After we walked to the another hide which was round the other side of the lake, when we were walking down the path to the hide quite a few Little gulls flew over our heads and when we almost reached the hide a Common sandpiper flew over the lake which then flew over the path which we were walking on. When we got in the hide, once again this one was overlooking the same lake. straight away I picked up about 4 little gulls flying around it which kept landing on the lake.

Little Gull

 

After we went through the wood to reach another hide, this one was near a little scrape with a small amount of water, as we walked in straight away a Grey heron lifted off and flew to the other side of the Scrape, we scanned the scrapes for waders but we couldn't find anything. As we were walking out of the hide my dad spotted this bush with lots of butterflies, bees and a couple of moths on it, I saw a Silver Y moth come to the front of the bush, it stayed for a while then flew back round the back of the bush.

Silver Y

 

After we walked through another part of the wood, we heard about two different Sparrow hawks, when we were walking through we spotted another hide so we decided to have quick look in there, when we went in there was a few Female mallards sitting at the side of the river and there was several reed and sedge warblers flying around in amongst the reeds. After a little while a Juvenile moorhen came in to land on a post on the river, he soon flew of into the reeds and then him and a Adult moorhen came back out. After when we had just left the hide we once again we heard the call of a Sparrow hawk, it sounded like it was coming towards us and then a few seconds later it flew straight past us. When we walked down the Path to go to another big lake we heard another Sparrow hawk, this time I spotted it up in the trees. It was great watching this fantastic bird.

Sparrow hawk

 

When we were walking to the other lake, on the way there was a hide looking over a little lake we decided to have a look inside, on the lake there was around about 5 little grebes, while we were watching the grebes 2 waders flew in, they were Green sandpipers they flew around the lake for a long time, then after a while they flew away. There was a few more hides around this other lake but there wasn't much in them, on the big main lake there was a few more little gulls and tons of Tufted ducks. On the flowers at the side of the path there was lots of Small Skippers, also there was a few other different types of moths.

Small Skipper

 

I think this moth is a Silver ground carpet

 

After when we had walked round the other lake we decided to go to North Cave but we only had 30mins to spend there but we will be probably going again next week to check out more of the reserve, when we got out of the car we walked down the path and made it to the first hide, the hide overlooked a massive lake, at the front of it there was a few little grebes and a few great crested grebes also right in the middle of the lake there was a raft with some adult common terns on with a few juvenile common terns.

 

After we walked down to a smaller lake where there was a little grebe showing quite well on it also the occasional Common tern came in to fish.

Common tern

 

After that we had to go home, when we were walking back to the car we quickly had a look through a view screen which looked over a lake with a few scrapes of it, we saw an Adult little ringed plover with 2 chicks and a few avocets were wading around the edges.