Following in the footsteps of many others, we went over to Bosherston Lakes late yesterday afternoon to see if the Little Crake was still present.
Caroline Pickett and a few others had been watching it just before we arrived. After several minutes, it appeared again near the edge of the strip of bur-reed (Sparganium) where we all had reasonable views.
A while later it got close enough to see more detail, including the slight amount of red at the base of the bill and the longish primary feather projection. It moved around quite a bit, in and out of patches of emergent and floating vegetation. It sometimes moved quite quickly, occasionally darting about slightly erratically as it chased small invertebrates, such as small snails which it picked off the rotting lily pads etc.
At one point it flew up from and back into the reedbed from where it called briefly – some quite short trill/churring sounds (slightly reminiscent of short bits of a nightjar) - possibly a contact call, or perhaps an alarm call? Hopefully, if it continues to stay for a while, someone might get a recording of the calls.
Other species seen/heard included several Coot (not very common at Bosherston Lakes these days), Moorhens, a few Water Rails (calling from within the emergent vegetation close to the Little Crake zone) and a couple of Kingfishers.
