Hello again, it’s not been a great day weather-wise but despite that, there is a full book of sightings to bring you. Thanks very much to whoever it is that wrote them down today. I can’t quite work out the initial but if it was you, then thanks very much!
I’ll start though with the news that the Tree Sparrow farm is ‘closed’ for a few days whilst the reserve team sort out the floor.
So to the book and the Family Hide. Here today there were sightings of: Canada Geese, cormorants, tufted duck, coots, moorhen, Lesser BB gull, mallard, magpie, mute swan, shovelor, black headed gull and gadwall.
Next to the Field Pool West. From here today come sightings of black headed gull, pink footed goose, starlings, Canada goose, lapwing, coot, moorhen, shovelor, wigeon, oystercatcher, gadwall, tufted duck, magpie and Lesser BB gull.
Over now to the Field Pool East for sightings – moorhen, coot, tufted duck, wigeon, little grebe, teal, gadwall, shovelor and black headed gulls.
Then we have the sightings from up at Wath Ings: Little egret, Canada geese, pink footed goose, mute swan, coot, mallard, shovelor, black headed gull and tufted duck.
Green Lane today gave us the following… Blackbird, mistle thrush, robin, magpie, goldfinch, bullfinch and a willow warbler.
The reedbed hide today gave us the following sightings: Lovely long tailed tits, reed buntings, coots, little grebe, great crested grebe, tufted duck and gadwall. A bittern was heard as it boomed from here today and there are further sightings of kestrel and sand martin.
Finally from the book today are sightings of all our current usual suspects in the bird garden.
Next to the sightings from Twitter. Thanks go to those who tweet them for us.
John Seeviour was at Bolton Ings today and saw the following – 2 mute swans, 4 great crested grebe, 2 little grebe, 5 mallard, 6 gadwall, 3 shovelor, 23 tufted duck, 8 pochard, 31 coots, a cormorant, a common gull, 7 chiffchaff, 3 willow warbler, a blackcap, a green woodpecker, a male and a female bullfinch and a hedgehog!
Gary Stones was at Adwick today and gave us the following sightings – 2 garganey in the same pool, 2 little egret, 14 avocet, 2 oystercatcher, approx. 30 redshank including a colour ringed one that I’ll get onto shortly, 2 grey partridge, 3 pink footed geese and approx. 15 swallows.
Here’s a photo from Gary of the colour ringed redshank. He told us that it was first seen by @ghaywood1961 on 30/3/2018 and it is still present and that it’s the same bird from last year. It was rung on 24/2/17 at Levington Lagoon, Orwell Estuary, Suffolk was also seen at @RSPB_OldMoor.
Alan Stonier was at Edderthorpe and tweeted the following sightings – 34+ swallows, 9+ sand martin, 3 house martin, 24 wigeon, 5 little grebes, 3 goosander, a few willow warblers and chiffchaffs, 9 mute swan and blackcaps which arrived last Sunday.
Here’s a photo from Alan of the newly arrived hirundines.
That’s it so far today. If you follow the Twitter feed of @BarnsleyBSG, you’ll find anything else that was spotted around the Dearne Valley today.