Firstly, from the Beckingham team, a very Happy New Year to everyone. 2017 was another great year of success at Beckingham, with our highest ever number of lapwings breeding, 3 pairs of redshank and the first ever breeding attempt of curlew, not to mention the mountain of tree sparrows that fledged! There's certainly a lot to be excited about and to look forward to for 2018 and we hope to see the site improve even more as we move through the year.
But for now we are enjoying the suite of winter birds that are calling the site their home....
250 wigeon are now in residence and can be see feeding on the wet grassland from the viewing screen. They are accompanied by smaller numbers of other wildfowl, including mallard, teal and shoveler.
Wader wise, lapwing and snipe are both on site in good numbers and a total of 50+ snipe in one field just before Christmas was a very impressive total!
The ever present tree sparrows are always a joy to see and there are good numbers of other small passerines around too including flocks of goldfinch and reed bunting and redpoll have been heard calling overhead.
A pair of stonechat are wintering and we have had several sightings of kingfisher recently.
And of course, the local barn owls are still to be seen at dawn and dusk feeding on site.
Keep an eye open for any more unusual visitors too in the coming weeks, possibilities include short-eared owl, whooper swan and golden plover - you never know what might be around....
Look out for whooper swans on the wet grassland over the winter.