Spotted crake by Joyce Rae
Well, the weather has most certainly changed in the last couple of days and Autumn is well and truly here. However, that means that there's literally thousands of birds gracing Burton Mere Wetlands now, including record numbers of some of our wildfowl as Helen has been reporting in her daily posts.
On Saturday we had a report of a spotted crake at the Reedbed Screen, photographed (see above) by a visitor who just happened to be in the right place at the right time! Fantastic to see such a close, clear view, after hearing one intermittently in the summer but no evidence of breeding success as we had in 2014. Typically these birds migrate to Africa for the Winter, but there have been November and February records here in previous years so worth keeping your eyes peeled!
A couple of other surprises over the weekend were a lone avocet on Saturday and a fleeting glimpse of a glossy ibis on Sunday, and the odd golden plover on Friday rose to seven on Saturday with the one still present on Monday. Yet it's the wildfowl dominating the scrapes at the moment, with counts of teal breaking the 6000 mark (across Burton Mere Wetlands as a whole), 2000 pintail usually seen best from the Bridge Screen and a peak of 850 pink-footed geese.
Two Cetti's warblers have been heard and seen from the Reedbed Screen, along with the occasional water rail. The pectoral sandpiper seems to have moved on, last seen on Sunday, but another single curlew sandpiper arrived on Monday, and the little stint count moved up to four.
Birds of prey continue to perform, with multiple daily marsh harrier sightings including two seen together on Tuesday, plus peregrine, kestrel, buzzard and sparrowhawk regularly seen.
As the leaves start to change colour, the Autumnal ambience will grow, so get wrapped up and come and enjoy it for yourselves - we've had the pellet stove on in the Reception Hide a few times already, so there's really no better place to get out and enjoy the countryside right now.