{"id":11309,"date":"2025-03-14T17:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T17:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=11309"},"modified":"2025-03-16T09:14:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T09:14:28","slug":"denso-marston-nature-reserve-march-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/denso-marston-nature-reserve-march-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Denso Marston Nature Reserve, March 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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These are from a couple of visits to Denso Marston Nature Reserve<\/a>. During one visit I watched a Grey Heron catch and swallow a couple of large Frogs. The highlight of another visit was to get good sightings of a Mink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As usual you can tap\/touch\/click on an image, not its caption, to see it in better quality in the gallery. If you are using a phone this can be quite tricky to do because the caption takes up most of the space of the thumbnail, you might find it easier to turn your phone to landscape. I am hoping to change that for the site. You can also leave comments or subscribe to the site – leave your email address and you will get notified when I publish something new.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Heron & Frog<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When I first spotted the Heron it was poised with its gaze fixed on a spot in the reeds. It lunged and got the frog, tossed it around for a while before swallowing it head first. The second frog it caught it seemed to spend a while rinsing it in the water to get the mud off before downing that one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Grey Heron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Grey Heron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Grey Heron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Grey Heron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Mink<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Though I wish they weren’t along the river it is still great to see Mink. This one looked as though it might be making a nest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Mink<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Mink<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mink<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Mink<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Little Grebe etc.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Little Grebe is looking smarter with its breeding\/summer plumage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Bullfinch pair it looked as though the male approached the female with nesting material and then flew off after she lent towards him. I guess there are two interpretations of their actions. Did he approach and say “Look at this. Aren’t I great? I’ll go build our nest.” or was it more like “Look at this, you can build a nest with it.” “Sod off! I’m eating.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a while now Robins have been singing in their territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Little Grebe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Little Grebe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Bullfinch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Grey Wagtail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Robin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Chiffchaff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Fish Shoal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Stock Dove<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I think some Chiffchaff have over-wintered here but this one is perhaps a new arrival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just below the Chiffchaff the sun was shining on a shoal of tiny fish. There were no Kingfisher or Heron to feed on them though.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heron, eating Frogs. Mink and courting Bullfinch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Heron eating Frogs. Mink and courting Bullfinch.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[154,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-denso","category-paul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/R7_C8447.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3kGoX-2Wp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11309"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11352,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11309\/revisions\/11352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}