It's getting 'Otter...

The reserve is so alive at the moment, it's wonderful. As soon as the day warms and the sun shines, the flowers open and the insects fly.  There are at least four orchid species in flower: bee, pyramidal, southern marsh and early marsh. Ask at the Visitor Centre for details, but come prepared to get damp feet, as it's a bit wet underfoot where some of these flowers thrive.

Several broad-bodied chaser dragonflies are pacing their territories, and common blue and blue-tailed damselflies have been laying eggs in the ponds.

The first broods of blackcaps, lesser whitethroats, robins and blue tits have been leaving the nest this week, so there are all sorts of weird squeaks coming from the trees and bushes. On the water are several broods of moorhens, our single coot chick is doing well from its nest in front of The LookOut, and there are several broods of Canada geese too. At least two broods of oystercatchers are being fed by their attentive parents, on the islands to the left of Carneddau Hide

Our great crested grebes started building a nest on the Deep Lagoon last weekend, then gave up and have now built a nest on the Shallow Lagoon - they were very late in getting started, so this may not come to much.

A male scaup is a real surprise, though it's not completely unknown for them to appear in the summer. Its mates will all be somewhere on the edge of the Arctic right now, so he's well out of his usual range. Dunlins, ringed plovers, whimbrel and a common sandpiper were all seen this morning (31st), likely to be the last of the spring migrants heading north.

An early morning visitor to the reserve saw two otters in the estuary on Thursday morning, and we have had several sightings on our motion-sensitive trail camera (click on the link below to see a few seconds of the film). It's great to know they're here, even if we rarely get to see them! There have been a couple of sightings of stoat this week, though nothing regular yet to merit photographers staking them out. And a high tide washed up a big jellyfish on the foreshore during the week, not something we usually see here!