More from Titchfield HavenNature Reserve and today I had another 1st for me with a distant view of a pair of Glossy Ibis. In the UK they are considered rare migrants and winter visitors from SW Europe with typically less than 100 recorded per year although they are increasing – there have been recent reports of this bird on social media on nature reserves near Portsmouth and on the coast of the New Forest. Southampton Water is between these two reserves so I guess a sighting at the Haven was likely.

Both birds were a fair way off but I got a few pictures and a short video.

Lots of Black-headed gull chicks are hatching on the islands in the reserve. Many are at their spotty cute stage but as they grow they become rather ugly. A bit like the opposite of the “there once was an ugly duckling” poem by Hans Christian Andersen!

The chicks are in constant danger of predation. Herring Gulls and Black-backed gulls. They fly over the nests putting the Black-headed gulls into a frenzy below a Lesser Black-backed gull lands in the colony but is chased off before it can catch a chick for a meal.

(Spot the Lesser-Black-backed gull -yellow legs feet and beak).

There are a lot of Avocets in the reserve at the moment a few have chicks but are hard to spot at the moment.

A spider catches a damselfly. The damselfly is truly stuck in the spider’s web the spider drops down and closes in for a meal.

Common Blue Damselfly is the UK’s most common damselfly and can be found around almost any water body,