2011

Lea Farm GP is north of Lavell's Lake along the Loddon footpath. It is a relatively new lake formed from recent gravel extraction, it has been created as a nature reserve by Summerleaze Ltd, who own the land.

Summerleaze Ltd have given F.O.L.L. (Friends of Lavell's Lake) permission to build a 'members only' hide overlooking the lake and FOLL are also involved with some aspects of the site management. In 2011 F.O.L.L. asked us to colour ring the Black-headed Gull chicks at Lea Farm GP along with the Common Terns and this was carried out on 26 June. One raft had been occupied by a few Black-headed Gulls and about 12 pairs of Common Terns but it appears that the regular harassment by the gulls had a detrimental affect and there were only 12 Tern pulli on the raft along with several small dead chicks and un-hatched eggs. 39 gull pulli were present on the 2 rafts and all were colour ringed. One of the nesting adults here (2X53) is a bird that was ringed at Hosehill in 2009.

So far (January 2012) we’ve only had one reported sighting of these birds.