It’s an overdue first blog of the year, with lots of delightful winter sightings offering plenty of reasons to visit, plus other work and news to share.
Recent sightings
After a settled, dry start to the month, we’ve had some persistent winds followed by this week's cold snap, making it at times more appealing to stay at home. Despite that, the birds have been on top form, with often a brilliant array of waders, wildfowl and raptors to enjoy even from the comfort of the visitor centre.
The scrape has at times hosted several hundred black-tailed godwits, with an occasional bar-tailed godwit found by the keenest of eyes and over 100 knot a nice highlight during the high tides mid-month. Similarly impressive flocks of lapwings are often seen harassed by birds of prey, with smaller numbers of redshank, ruff, spotted redshank, snipe, golden plover, curlew and even a single green sandpiper take the number of different waders into double figures from the visitor centre alone.
Black-tailed godwits (Paul Jubb)
Also here in sizeable flocks are teal, with good numbers of shoveler, gadwall, wigeon, and of course mallard too, plus shelduck on the wet grassland. Spectacular flocks of pink-footed geese make regular flights between the saltmarsh and surrounding farmland, at times dropping onto the wet grassland to feed, and a couple of barnacle geese sometimes amongst them. Smaller numbers of Canada geese and greylag geese are readily found, with two of each Egyptian geese and ruddy shelduck spotted on or around The Mere at times.
It has seemed a quiet winter for swans on the reserve, but Border Pool is a popular spot for mute swans, whilst seven whooper swans and two Bewick’s swans made a rare dusk appearance to roost here on Thursday. Of the raptors, marsh harrier are most active and prominent, with kestrel and sparrowhawk also regular. Buzzards soar above the woodland, and we've had three hen harrier sightings (two grey adult male) in the past week, and the resident barn owl continues to put on starring performances in the last hour or so before sunset.
Marsh harrier (Paul Jubb)
Great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch, treecreeper are regular highlights near the feeding station close to the visitor centre, with long-tailed tits and siskin other notable winter residents around The Mere trail. It's been a quiet winter for kingfisher sightings, but there have been steady reports this week around Willow Pool. Water rail are notoriously elusive, but with patience can be spotted creeping or fluttering around the pool at Reedbed screen or from Marsh Covert hide.
Further along the Wetland trail, stonechat and reed bunting perch on reeds and rushes, whilst a few lesser redpolls can be found feeding high in alders. Up on Burton Point, green woodpecker, fieldfare, redwing, linnet and meadow pipit are the pick of birds often feeding on the ground or perched in low vegetation.
The freezing conditions this week have made life hard for the herons and egrets, but great egret and little egret can still be seen reliably most days, and a couple of cattle egrets have again spent the winter, usually on nearby farmland with little egrets in the day, but joining the communal roost on The Mere each evening.
Great egret and little egret (Paul Jubb)
Out on the estuary, the most significant additional sighting to the above is the short-eared owl, with a small number being seen at Parkgate since mid-December. Our forthcoming high tide events (more on those later) could be a good chance to see these captivating day-flying owls. Similarly, a bittern is reported most days on the marsh by the Old Baths car park, which is also a prime spot at dusk to catch hen harriers and staggering numbers of marsh harriers flying info their roost at dusk.
Star sighting
One stand-out rarity for this month is a long-billled dowitcher that was found in the large godwit flock on the scrape on Wednesday 11 January. This American wader is a relatively scarce vagrant to the UK, but this appearance now makes it four calendar years running that one has found its way to Burton Mere Wetlands, with the last record as recently as November - and possibly the very same individual!
The 2020 long-billed dowitcher, close to redshanks and oystercatcher (Paul Jubb)
Wardens wanderings
After months of the wild Welsh ponies grazing, coupled with days of tractor topping by the warden team in the drier autumn months, attention now turns to brushcutting the wetter areas including the back edge of the scrape where extensive rush and reed growth is limiting the space for waders to nest in that particular area.
In addition to creating prime habitat, extensive effort also goes into maintaining the miles of electric fencing around the wet grassland, an essential part of our breeding wader success by preventing foxes and badgers from accessing and predating nests.
We're currently recruiting for a new residential volunteer as we bid farewell to Shivani next month as she starts a new job with the RSPB in Sussex. For further details and to apply, click here.
Get Involved
Hopefully the above has whet your appetite enough for a visit to catch sight of the winter bird flocks that make the Dee Estuary one of the most important sites in Europe. Already a month past the winter solstice and with sunset advancing by the week, it won't be long before we start seeing things on the move again, starting with the iconic avocets, the first of which are usually here around the middle of February.
If you are visiting but perhaps not overly familiar with the approach and entrance, please note that the reserve's brown sign where you turn off Puddington Lane is currently missing, so we've had a number of visitors tell us they have inadvertently missed the turn. Until it is replaced, a reminder that the turn into the reserve is right where the speed limit signs are on your way into or out of Burton village.
The sign and pole were taken out in preparation for the planned delivery of the modular sections of our cafe building which had been due to take place on Tuesday 10 January. However, for reasons beyond our control, this was unable to happen and the build is paused until a telegraph pole in our car park is moved.
We're conscious that the access track to the car park has deteriorated badly this month, again in part due to the ongoing cafe build, but our warden team will be painstakingly filling potholes in the coming days to restore it until it is fully refurbished after the cafe is completed.
After a busy couple of weeks of events in support of the upcoming Big Garden Birdwatch (still time to register and take part at home this coming weekend), our attention now turns to a run of High Tide Watch events at Parkgate, with the first of the year on Tuesday 24 January. The weather forecast doesn't look favourable to push the tide in close, but there's still a chance of good views of birds of prey with the advantage of our staff and volunteers to help with spotting.