Following in the footsteps of many others, we went over to
Bosherston Lakes late yesterday afternoon to see if the Little Crake was still present.
Caroline Pickett and a few others had been
watching it just before we arrived. After several minutes, it appeared again near
the edge of the strip of bur-reed (Sparganium) where we all had reasonable views.
A while
later it got close enough to see more detail, including the slight amount of
red at the base of the bill and the longish primary feather projection. It
moved around quite a bit, in and out of patches of emergent and floating vegetation. It sometimes moved quite quickly, occasionally darting
about slightly erratically as it chased small invertebrates, such as small snails which it picked off the rotting lily pads etc.
At one point it flew up from and back
into the reedbed from where it called briefly – some quite short trill/churring
sounds (slightly reminiscent of short bits of a nightjar) – possibly a contact call, or perhaps an alarm call? Hopefully, if it continues to stay for a while, someone might get a recording of the calls.
Other species seen/heard included several Coot (not very common at Bosherston Lakes these days), Moorhens, a few Water Rails (calling from within the emergent vegetation close to the Little Crake zone) and a couple of Kingfishers.