Winter is definitely coming over at Beckingham, with a nice selection of wintering birds now using the site. A total of 325 wigeon were seen in the first week of November on the wet grassland fields and we hope that this number will build up throughout the winter. Wigeon are brilliant - they graze the grass on the wet fields, helping to get a nice short sward ready for the lapwings to start breeding in April. Winter wildfowl are a real feature of Beckingham at this time of year and as well as the wigeon, we have a good assemblage of other species including mallard, teal and shoveler. We also had a good record for the site in the first week of November....two whooper swans were seen on one of the wet grassland fields in the company of two mute swans. It's not very often that we get swans of any species on site and even rarer that we get whoopers, so it was a real treat to see them.
Wader numbers too are building up for the winter, with 150+ lapwing seen recently and a nice flock of 300 golden plover on the wet grassland fields in the first week of November. Golden plover are another scarce species at Beckingham, so it was lovely to see them using the site.
And Beckingham isn't just good for birds, we have had a couple of good mammal sightings recently too, with water vole recorded in one of our internal ditches by one of our volunteers at the end of October. Water vole sightings are few and far between, so it was great to get a record of them on site.
And speaking of water voles, our volunteers have been busy doing some ditch management to help them in the last few weeks. We have been removing willow from the ditches to open them up to improve the habitat for the voles and to aid water transport through the site.