It has happened to me on several occasions that I have had a report of good activity in a wood; I go there as soon as I can, either within hours or at least on the next day, and see nothing! I got lucky this year [see an earlier blog] when I saw about 30 sex starved males frantically looking for females in the sallows in one hour on July 11th between 10 and 11 am. This private wood in Bucks has transect walkers visiting regularly, and nobody has seen so many on any visit so far. Luck plays a huge role in this I believe. you just have to be in the right place at the right time.These mad bursts of activity involve males only and probably only lasts for an hour or two. In fact, on July 11th, when I returned to the start one hour later where I had seen 10 in 15 minutes along 100m of ride, I saw only two.
I would dearly like to know your experiences please.
Of course, it does not apply to the top habitats, Knepp and Fermyn, where the numbers are so large that you will always see activity
It has been an average season so far in Upper Thames, with big variations in numbers in our 'good woods'.
It did not get going properly until the second week in July, so we should still see them until mid-August, unless the weather intervenes and knocks them out.
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4 comments:
Hi Dennis
No such activity this year but I had similar experience at Straits Inclosure on 20 July 2013. Normal activity here I'd see a dozen or so males over an hour or so but on this occasion I sensed something different was happening and made one walk down the main ride consciously trying to count different individuals. In all I counted 54 different males all sallow searching or oak edging looking for females. This count was also made in approximately one hour - if I timber rightly just after lunch - a very similar experience to yours and one that I have not repeated before of since. No real explanation but maybe it was Big Bang day for females in copious sallows that were in this ride?
interesting BB., and thanks for your response;
this website is great but I get the strong impression that people are just interested in getting their sightings on and are not bothering to read all the blogs; why do I think that?
becasue there are very rarely any comments!
so thank you very much for sharing your exoperience with me
by the way, who are you; do we know each other?
Hi Dennis
My name is Mark Tutton and I hail from Portsmouth and an acquaintance of Ashley Whitlock. I used the moniker BB because my other vice is fishing and BB was the nom de plume of Denys Watkins Pitchford the famous angling writer and breeder of Himself (to stock Fermyn) I don't know if we have met, unfortunately,
It is a shame more people don't leave comments but I guess a good deal of the blogs are simple reports (especially at this time of the year) as you say, rather than commentary on behaviour or distribution etc. other than the EXTREMELY technical ones by Irisscientist!
Perhaps we should make a pact of commenting on each other's blogs to see if we can start a trend? :)
Kind regards
Mark
good idea, Mark; may I have your email address please?
yes, I agree, let us do that, i.e., comment on each other's blogs
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