I spent a couple of hours in my Alphin Brook hide yesterday, I really want to see the Kingfisher again and I am putting the time in, in the hope that he will show up. It was a good session, even with no KF but some other interesting birds came and went,  at times landing on the very close,  strategically placed perch.  This hide has certainly given me some great moments what with Jack Snipe, Snipe, Heron, Egrets and Grey Wagtails and I can thoroughly recommend a little permanently placed hide like this.  It is so convenient to just pop  down to the brook and be under cover within seconds, totally concealed. You can never be sure what is going to arrive. I know that a pair of Pied Wagtail have a nest somewhere nearby because almost every hide session I see both parents. They bathe in the, now shallow water  and feed on Mayfly…… more about them a little later. One frustration has been the reluctance of the Pied Wagtails to perch on the close branch, until yesterday that is and here he is. He's looking a bit tatty but in fact, has just had a bath . Even more interesting, (didn't want to say exciting, it's just a Wagtail after all), was the appearance of a newly fledged baby who was vary skittish but stayed just long enough, only 4 foot away, for a photo. It's interesting to see the vague hint of pied markings on the chest and head, and I think this is a pretty little baby bird.

 I remember at the height of the cold winter, finding a Pied Wagtail almost on it's last legs as it struggled to find enough to eat and I doubt it survived the winter night. So, it's great therefore to know that life goes on for this species at least here in Alphington.

Without any doubt, the mainstay of all the bird's diet on the brook, is the Mayfly from the family Ephemera. They have been emerging constantly since the beginning of May and the Wagtails, both Grey and Pied have been feeding on them.  More surprisingly is the reliance on them by the local House Sparrow colony. It is thought the decline in Sparrow numbers is due to a corresponding decline in insect prey at the height of their breeding season. Here on the brook it is obvious that there is a relationship between the Mayfly hatch and the Sparrows breeding season. They are constantly catching and carrying them back to their nests up stream in a cotoneaster hedge. They have given me some great photo opportunities especially when they have prey in their beaks.

 Here is a bit more about Mayfly. The adult Imago live for just a very short time, sometimes a few hours but at most only a day. However when you realise that this final stage is just one of the stages of the insects life, then it is not quite so depressingly dramatic. They do get to mate and lay eggs in this short time at least. When the eggs hatch the newly emerged larvae live at the bottom of the stream in the mud for two years before emerging as adults to start the cycle again.