Good afternoon. We have all been busy this week with various different things. Those of you who have visited the reserve in the last couple of weeks will have noticed that the visitor centre pond has had a haircut:
Suzanne has also been busy maintaining the wildlife garden outside the visitor centre window. This has paid dividends as we now have some fine cowslips in flower:
We have also started doing various bird surveys. Suzanne and I did our first Common Bird Census (CBC) around Brandon Fen this morning. Here is our highly technical map:
...And here is the list of codes to decipher what species we heard and saw:
Image credits: David White
If the above images are giving you a headache, here is an account of what we heard and saw:
We officially started at 6.30am but I got here slightly earlier. I nipped up the mound near the visitor centre and a great white egret was on the washland. A barn owl was also hunting nearby which was nice to see.
A chiffchaff was singing alongside the entrance track and a blackcap was singing in the same area. We took a shortcut through the vegetation near the reserve entrance and spooked at least five roe deer that were grazing nearby.
A song thrush was belting out its loud song in the poplars and a dozen bramblings flew over. Just as we got to the edge of the car park, one of these northern finches was singing its wheezy song.
It was then time to investigate the reedbeds at the eastern edge of the trail. A Cetti's warbler was “shouting” away and we could hear a sedge warbler singing its scratchy song nearby. There was then a moment of excitement when a grasshopper warbler started singing behind us. Although we couldn’t see it, it was great to hear our first one of these elusive warblers this year.
As we headed back towards the visitor centre, there were a couple more sedge warblers singing alongside the path. Another Cetti’s warbler was singing near the Washland viewpoint and a sneaky peak up on the washland revealed a single fishing common tern.
We returned to the visitor centre for a well earned rest and cup of tea. Typically, a willow warbler started singing right outside the visitor centre just before we opened up the visitor centre. As we didn’t hear it during our survey though, we couldn’t count it which was a bit of a shame.
I hope this has given you an insight into what we are up to (and what's around of course!) on the reserve at the moment. We hope to see you soon!