Ardley ERF - 1st half 2024

I decided to use Ardley as my 3km patch to take part in the Patchwork Challenge for 2024. I visit it a lot anyway so it's no great hardship and a short drive from home. Most of it is private but public rights of way run through it so most of the area is viewable. It is a great little site with a mixture of habitat and always feels like it can turn up almost anything, and has a good record of doing so. The main hope is for some good waders during the passage months. The lagoon next to the facility building is small, but when the water level is right, can be very attractive for passage waders. 2022 was a great year with spotted redshank and curlew sandpiper during the autumn migration. Last year disappointed with barely any waders on passage. I've seen all three species of egret here, but even little egrets are a good bird for the site and not regular. It is also a good site for passerines such as Wheatears, Redstarts, and Whinchat at the right time of year. 

January got off to a good start with a patch tick great black-backed gull on 1st January flying through. Gulls do loaf on the ERF lagoon but with no reliability, so often the gull action is overhead or in the adjacent quarry. Sadly it's not quite the gulling location it once was but most of the common species turn up throughout the year.

Wigeon is another good bird for Ardley. Within the adjacent quarry workings is a small lake which tends to attract the ducks, more so than the ERF lagoon itself. On 18/01, 3 wigeon were present during the cold spell with about 60 teal. I saw a flock of 30 plus on the pool next to the M40 in March.

The other highlight of the first couple of months were the numbers of siskins. 



Peregrines are pretty regular at the site and is often perched on the chimneys or on the ERF building. The roof must be littered with the remains of kills. Despite seeing a pair quite regularly in early spring, they didn't appear to attempt to nest on the building.



Red kites are always around and often give some nice close views over the adjacent sheep fields.



The expected waders early in the year comprised the regular green sandpipers, snipe, golden plover (over) and lapwing. Two green sandpipers were present throughout the winter spending most of the time on the lagoon.



A pair of stonechats took up residence during the winter and were seen quite regularly at various points in the site.


Yellowhammers and reed buntings are present in small numbers. One or two singing corn buntings appeared in March and were present on and off for most of the spring. Several singing Meadow Pipits and regular sightings throughout the spring would suggest they may well have bred within the confines of the ERF site.

A nuthatch on 23rd March was a nice patch tick.



Wheatears are expected at Ardley every spring and they prefer a small area of a field adjacent to the quarry. This year I only saw them once on 24th March when 8 were present.

Easily the best bird of the spring for me and one I'd hoped for at Ardley was a Ring Ouzel on 7th April. A real thrill, and great other local birders were able to see it throughout the day before it moved on overnight.


A singing Sedge Warbler in early May was a good bird for Ardley, although it didn't stick around. A Dunlin in mid-may and the first Little ringed plover of the year was nice to see once the water level on the lagoon had dropped to expose some mud. Dunlin are not all that regular at Ardley.


A drake Red-crested pochard was an unexpected site tick in mid-May. It stuck around for several weeks dabbling in the shallow water of the lagoon with the exceptional numbers of gadwall. A pair of Gadwall went on to breed which is a great record for the site.


A pair of Little grebes nested on the Trow Pool and began with four young, before quickly losing three of them. The remaining one survived and is still present.



The most unexpected bird of the year so far was the putative Canvasback that appeared on 4th June. As I was checking through the ducks on the lagoon during an evening visit I saw what initially I thought was a female pochard, which in itself would be an unusual record. It was distant and dabbling away in the muddy shallows so I couldn't really decide what I was looking at and it didn't look quite right for a pochard. Canvasback is not a species I have any experience with and if one was going to appear in the county, I wouldn't expect it here, at this time of year, behaving like a dabbling duck. Fortunately JFT was able to come and have a look and get some photos of it and confirm his feelings that it looked like a possible Canvasback. Sadly it disappeared overnight. We've discussed it quite a bit since. It seems likely it is a Canvasback. There are some known escapes in the east of England although the exact details of these seems unclear from my research. Naturally, such a rare duck is almost impossible to confirm as a wild bird, however, it was un-ringed and fully winged so not an obvious escape. A drake appeared on the continent around the same time this year, accepted as wild. So who knows, it seems a shame to dismiss it, but wherever it came from it was a great bird to see at Ardley.

John provides his thoughts on the bird here:



A bird I had hoped for during the winter at Ardley was Short-eared owl. The area looks perfect for them and given they were around and about in good numbers I was disappointed not to see one during the winter months. So it was a great surprise when JFT found one on 27th June perched on a fence post in the field adjacent to the ERF site. Fortunately it stayed put for an hour or so before having a brief hunt. 


The water level on the lagoon has dropped to the ideal level for waders by the end of June. A Redshank was a patch tick for me on 29th June. A Greenshank found by Justin Taylor on 4th July kept the nice recent run ticking over. I am hoping the autumn will bring a new wader for my Ardley list. So far I've recorded 86 species this year, so with any luck I should get over the 90 mark by the end of the year.



A few photos of the regulars..






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