angellightphoto

By angellightphoto

sad day

...after a busy morning, we went over to Studland to check on our Nightjars. We took our usual walk to see how many Sand Lizards were about - plenty of females but no males - before continuing on to the nest site.

As we quietly approached, I was surprised not to see the familiar, albeit well camouflaged, shape of mum. Thinking that she had probably moved the crèche into deeper cover, we were distraught when we noticed two lifeless chicks in the scrape. So sad.

When we first saw the crazy place that the mother Nightjar had chosen to lay her eggs, we were concerned that the brood would never survive to hatch - this is an area with a good population of reptiles, not to mention the risk from human and canine feet. When, against the odds, she successfully incubated the eggs and we saw her two gorgeous fluffy chicks, we were elated. Once they had made it through their first week, our worries about the nest location had receded and our only real concern was predation. However, we were beginning to get a bit concerned about the size of the chicks and their apparent slow development. At ten days, we had the sad sight of one of the chicks on its last legs but were hopeful that, at the very least, the stronger chick would make it through to fledge. Alas, it was not to be.

My assessment is that the ongoing poor weather and, in particular, the evening and overnight rains, have added to the problem that a bad summer has reduced the number of night flying moths. My suspicion is that mum and dad were unable to provide enough food for their youngsters, which were, at the same time, expending more energy than usual keeping warm in the cool, damp conditions.

This evening, I went back to Arne for another Wasp Spider hunt. Disappointingly, no luck again.

So, today's image is a head and shoulders of one of the Sand Lizards accompanied by a hastily scribbled reference to this being my 100th blip...

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.