A return from a short break in Scotland and at last the reserve has had the high tide we so desperately needed to bring our water across the whole site up to Summer levels, thank goodness too! The flooded sections of the paths are just about clear now but with the added water and ever advancing spring the birding seems to be just as good if not even better than I went away, what a great March its been for variety and numbers of birds on site!
Fantastic to see up to three garganey up on Ousefleet flash with this bird right in front of the hide today along with a female.
There's certainly been a eclectic mix of species on view over the last few days with migrants like chiffchaff and sand martin moving through and a good variety of waders particularly in front of Ousefleet hide.
Avocets on one of the islands
Great to see up to 80 black-tailed godwits many moulting into their summer plumage and 20 ruff who although not in breeding plumage are starting to lek with each other. This morning there was a great mixed flock of black-tailed godwits, ruff, redshank, snipe, and curlew all greedily feeding along the grassy shoreline. Other recent wader sightings include regular oystercatcher, lapwings and the single green sandpiper still with us.
Ruff
Curlew, this bird is really territorial and chases all the other curlew away, interesting to see the chestnut tones developing on its breast, an aspect of breeding plumage we maybe don't appreciate its so subtle
Black-tailed godwits and redshank
Mixed waders feeding, mostly blackwits and ruff
The birds of prey are pretty spectacular as to be expected now with plenty of marsh harriers displaying and fighting among themselves, the hen harriers are a little more difficult but often show between about three and five o'clock while the barn owls are around dusk but again on the right night can be very good indeed. Also check out the harriers as there are also buzzards mixed with them, they often sit on top of the elder bushes.
Plenty of waterfowl across the lagoons with a nice mix of mallard, teal, wigeon, shoveler, gadwall, pochard and tufted duck as well as plenty of little grebes and coot, but strangely no sign of bittern as yet although out here on the Humber they can always be late arrivals as food levels don't often increase until April. The black headed gull colony is building up now giving the marsh a spring feel also look for the immature common gulls that are often mixing in with them at the moment
Black-headed gulls
Common gull
Quite a bit of whooper swan passage over the last week with herds passing through in force yesterday and the weekend some of which have been settling on the fields, and interesting fact that I learned on Monday while visiting Calaverlock WWT is that before they migrate the whoopers don't feed for a day or two, preferring to lighten their weight a little for long distance flight maybe?
Whoopers in flight
And resting with mute swans on the deck
Plenty of small bird activity with the Cettis warblers singing and a few bearded tits becoming a little more active, beardies can lay their eggs quite early so I suspect if the weather stays settled they may start in early April, with all the shallow water in the reedbed now conditions must be just about perfect! Around the car park and pathways there are plenty of resident birds singing and the tree sparrows are busy nest building, also nice to have a yellow hammer singing around Horseshoe meadow.
Yellow hammer on its singing perch
Good too to see the cowslips emerging both along the bank as you walk up to Ousefleet (please be careful you don't tread on those plants that are just about to flower when you look at them) and also a few in Horseshoe meadow.
Wild Tenby daffodil one of the plants we've planted along the hedgrow - Horseshoe meadow is very much an experimental meadow to see what diversity we can create.
And you remember that in my last blog my photo of the sea eagle was not particularly good at all, well here's a bit of a better one for you that I took in Scotland near to Oban.
Hopefully the video's will publish soon, apologies, Pete