LITTLE LEVERET

Visited the Dences at Bromans Farm near the country park on Saturday 19th to get a close look at this young brown hare, also known as a leveret. Two small leverets were discovered crouching low down in the Dences flower border whilst they did a spot of gardening. Both leverets remained still, and were almost touchable. When I visited at the end of the afternoon, only this leveret pictured above could be located after it bolted out of a border which was being watered.

The young leverets have the dark eye to begin with, which develops later into eyes with a yellow iris. The fur is different in texture and appearance to a rabbit, being less uniform grey and maybe the fur is a bit longer too.
The adult hare has been seen in the neighbouring arable field during the day and I'd noticed it a few days earlier near to the Bromans Farm. No doubt the mother will return to the young in the garden sometime after dark. This is the first time the Dences have seen young hares in their garden.

The rowan trees in the car park are laden down with red berries, adding a bit of colour to the area. The trees have put so much energy into producing the berries recently that some of the leaves have been dropping much earlier than usual. A few chaffinches were feeding in the trees at the beginning of the day but generally the birds aren't in a hurry to eat the berries yet.

A big flock of house martins flew around the park during the morning with about 400 birds feeding over the fields and swooping low over the water on the pond. Andy Field noted 150 of them resting along the central hedge in the fields. About 100 swallows were also flying around as well with one or two sand martins. By mid afternoon the martins had moved on but swallows were still to be seen.

The appearance of a sparrowhawk sent all the house martins into one big flock as well as 100 starlings. One of the local kestrels perched on some overhead wires as it scanned the ground for prey.

The cows enjoyed the sunshine in the field beside the park pond. Duck numbers are still building up for the autumn and one group of 24 newly arrived wigeon circled above the pond several times before heading off to the saltmarsh near the Point. On the pond 7 wigeon, 5 gadwall, 2 tufted duck, 2 shoveler, 30 teal, 70 mallard were some of the more visible ducks. The muddy pools in the fields have become muddy again after a short period of only 2 weeks of drying out. Six teal and 10 moorhens were seen feeding in the shallows.

The only migrants noted in the bushes were 3 chiffchaffs, lesser whitethroat, whitethroat, blackcap with yellow wagtail flying over as did 20+ meadow pipits. At the Point 2 wheatears were seen by Andy in the morning. Offshore there were 15 little egrets seen flying away as the tide came in.

The sunshine also saw 3 commas, 3 red admirals, 4 speckled woods, 15 small whites and small copper on the wing in the morning. Two common lizards were seen on some logs near the car park of the park.