Notes From Conder Green.

Common Tern Conder Pool. Pete Woodruff.

Interesting and coincidentally, I took this photograph of these three juvenile Common Tern twelve months ago to the day, on 11 July 2016.

There was a little extra interest at Conder Green yesterday, and it was good to see all three juvenile Common Tern which have soon learned the skills of fishing for themselves, and were hovering and dipping to take small fry out of Conder Pool. 

There was some interesting behaviour between two adult Common Tern, whilst one of the young had gone back into the pontoon which was guarded by an adult, another adult came in and dropped into the pontoon and was soon joined inside by the guarding bird which was obviously one of the parent birds, some serious loud and aggressive vocals, with necks stretched, heads up and drooped wings were on display when the visitor was violently stabbed at twice putting the bird to the wing and away, I reckon this bird was an intruder and not one of the Conder Pool family.

There was a huge and unprecedented raft of at least 550 adult and various aged immature gulls on Conder Pool yesterday, predominantly Lesser Black-backed Gull, with Herring Gull.

Also 2 Little Grebe on Conder Pool....is this an early start to the winter build up on here. Also, although the number didn't reach the peak of last Fridays 26, I counted 19 Common Sandpiper on the circuit yesterday.