It's been another busy couple of months over on the Marshes and the breeding season is well and truly underway. The lapwing and redshank are breeding on the wet grassland fields and this year we have had 26 pairs of lapwing and 5 pairs of redshank. This is the highest number of pairs of both species we have ever had, which is excellent news. However it is unfortunate that we haven't seen many chicks around. It is thought that the bad weather over the Mayday bank holiday weekend may have affected the young birds.
There have been several nice records of birds too, with two birds new to the reserve....avocet and spoonbill. Both species dropped into the wet grassland fields in the last couple of weeks, with the avocets staying for over a week. Other good bird sightings recently include ruff, little ringed plover and ringed plover, green sandpiper, yellow wagtail and a lovely group of four wheatear feeding on one of the dry fields.
Our volunteers have been busy doing the breeding wader surveys each week when on site. This is important so that we know how our habitat management is working. We have also been doing quite a lot of fencing work, including going all around the perimeter fixing rotten fence posts!