Recent sightings
The views from reception hide have had some great autumn visitors recently with kingfisher, spoonbill, whooper swans, floods of pink-footed geese, marsh harrier, peregrine, sparrowhawk, merlin, kestrel and hen harrier that has been showing really well across the site and up close and personal in front of reception hide.
Inner Marsh Farm and Marsh covert hide have both had a good share of the waders this week, little stint, green sandpiper, black-tailed godwits, lapwing, ruff, redshank, snipe, dunlin, and the curlew sandpipers all around most days and a raven, water rail, at Marsh Covert Hide.
Numbers of wintering ducks doing really well with shoveler, teal, shelduck, tufted, pintail and 10 gadwall across the reserve.
We still have 2 cattle egret, lots of little egret and several great white egret across the site. Growing numbers of the wintering finch flocks starting to build now with brambling, 40+ linnet, greenfinch and siskin. Stonechat seen regularly balancing on the tops of the brambles in front of reception hide.
Hen harrier (J.Hewitt)
The reception feeders still the best place to see great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch, and green woodpecker in one of its favorite spots near the railway bridge. Still some beautiful dragonflies around on the sunnier milder days like common darter and migrant hawker. A spectacular encounter with a stoat taking a grey squirrel near the bunker hide feeders.
Star sighting
The star sighting for this week has got to be the return of a little stint that has been showing well since Monday at Inner Marsh Farm hide with a couple appearances at Marsh Covert hide. The individual bird has been flaunting itself to our visitors , maybe a bit too much as it caught the eye of a passing marsh harrier who almost made it lunch!
Little stint (Mike Langman, rspb-images.com)
Wardens' wanderings
The team have been very busy this week. On Tuesday the team (Gwen, who was doing her final days with us, Steven, our newest residential volunteer along with current residential volunteer Alice) all joined Liz the assistant warden at Point of Ayre. They had a hard, full-on day taking down the extensive predator fencing, litter picking and cutting back the vegetation in front of the hide. Liz has also been busy at Burton Mere clearing back willow and scrub across the site. Today Liz has been leading a work party of 15 great local students from Reaseheath College and they are tackling the scrub along the edges of the paths.
Get involved
Next week is the school half term, and we will be helping families getting spooky with our 'Wild Things at Halloween' family quiz trail starting on Sunday 21 October, and loads of great autumnal wildlife spectacles for kids to enjoy at Burton Mere Wetlands.The Wirral Wader Festival is now less than two weeks away, and the bird flocks at the North Wirral coast are growing nicely. Take a look at the full events programme here which includes a guided walk to Hilbre Island on the Saturday afternoon.