This is an exciting time of year: each day brings new wildlife to the reserve, migrant birds arriving from Africa, colourful butterflies and bumblebees on the wing, and flowers starting to bloom. Of the 17 regular Summer migrants that we expect to record on the reserve each year, 10 had already been seen by 8 April, and five of these (shown in yellow below) were on their earliest dates since we've been keeping records.
Some species, such as reed and sedge warbler, are only here in low numbers so far, but their numbers will increase in the coming weeks. Many of our resident birds are already nest-building, and a few, such as blackbirds, already have chicks; we've also seen the first couple of mallard broods too. Our great crested grebes have been displaying, but not yet showing any signs of nest-building. The house sparrows are again building a nest in the box on the side of the Visitor Centre, their every move watched by visitors and volunteers, thanks to the nest-cam.
Many of the wintering ducks have now left, but there are a few shovelers, teal and gadwalls around, and both red-breasted merganser and goosander have been seen this week. Over 100 shelducks are regularly on the estuary, moving to roost on the lagoons at high tide, feeding up ahead of their move up-river in search of an empty rabbit burrow in which to set up home. Two great white egrets were a welcome surprise this morning, one hanging out with the grey herons and little egrets in Benarth heronry across the estuary from the reserve. There were a couple of late redwings here on Tuesday (4th) and a Scandinavian rock pipit has been on the saltmarsh for much of the last week. A bar-tailed godwit was in the wader roost on Friday 31st and a knot on Thursday 30th, but most of the northbound waders will be coming through later in the month.
The warm weather has encouraged insects to emerge: tawny mining bee and Clarke's mining bee, plus five bumblebees: early, red-tailed, garden, white-tailed and buff-tailed. Butterflies so far include peacock, small tortoiseshell, speckled wood and comma. Stoat and weasel have both been seen this week, and there is plenty of colour on the reserve. The cowslips are putting on a great display in front of the coffee shop, with increasing numbers of cuckoo-flowers, and look for the dog-violets along the bank by the estuary.
Julian HughesSite Manager, Conwy