Bay East Garden 16Sep12

From Danny

I was last Sunday at Marina Park, East to check on the BSK nesting. On arrival, one adult BSK was thermalling up to get away from 2 mobbing House Crows, rather ominous sign. Coming across the ditch just after the Barrage was the famous and friendly Ruddy breasted Crake, water level was low and it was foraging in the ditch about 5 ft from the path, unfortunately when I set up my scope further away (too near to focus), it moved further away- just a few moving away fuzzy pics. This is a good place to get close up pic of the crake, but is sensitive to rising water level (not tide) as when I left the ditch was flooded

I set up my scope after the fence barrier to check on the Nest, there was no sign of activity. After 10-15 min, I moved off towards the golf course side and came across a Long Tailed Shrike foraging on the ground, lighting good and manage a few reasonable pics. Then an Adult BSK flew in low but went way back behind the nesting Tree . Thinking the nesting had failed, I moved on to look for sign of any migrant - sadly only local birds, no migrating flycatcher.

As I left, a quick estimation of time convinced myself either the nesting failed due to the mobbing Crows or it could still at incubation. I set up my scope from another angle to look at the nest. It took me a while to manage to spot the relatively long and white undertail of a sitting BSK. It was practically motionless until for a quick moment, a wing flapped up and everything fell motionless again . The adult was incubating .

Refer to pic the white undertail is barely visible in the center of pic, just above the left slanting branch behind those dangling green leaves.