Report from 29 June to 1st July

We have been seeing a few juvenile Purple Herons lately; it looks like they may have fledged some time ago. The earliest juvenile Night Herons have also left the nest; they can’t quite fly yet, and so hop clumsily from one branch to the nest, always at the risk of falling. The first juvenile Common Terns are embarking on their tentative maiden flights, but most are still in the nest and covered in down. The White Stork chicks, on the other hand, are still far from fledging. Something seems to have gone awry this year. Out of our three nests, one is completely empty, and the other two only have two chicks each. The normal clutch for a pair of White Storks is four eggs, so we are well below average, although we still have not figured out why.
The Mallards are moulting: the drakes no longer sport their colourful plumage, and some are unable to fly, having dropped all their flight feathers. The havoc that the Japanese Beetle is wreaking on the local plant life is becoming evident: it does not merely eat the leaves, but also attacks fruits, whether wild or cultivated.
The heronry, which already hosts nests of Night Herons, Little Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Purple Herons, Squacco Herons, and Pygmy Cormorants, seems to act as a magnet drawing in new guests: right above the water levels several Least Bitterns were moving about. There must be at least two breeding pairs.