Recent sightings
A mostly bright and sunny week for us here. Lots of beautiful butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies and even a bat was seen during the day over the meres. Common lizards surprising some visitor appearing inside the Bunker Hide. Some of the orchids are showing at the moment. The marsh orchid is flowering, and the spotted orchids are just showing some leaves as are the bee orchids.
Marsh orchid by Roy Lowry
The bearded tits chicks have fledged! The pair have already started building their new nest for a second brood. Wednesday a couple of regulars spotted the young birds then Thursday morning from the reedbed screen a few lucky patient visitors got to see the two juveniles from the reedbed screen.
Marsh Covert Hide has been a brilliant hide this week with garganey, little-ringed plover, little stint, greenshank, dunlin and the spoonbills still scrapping with some fantastic photos being taken by our visitors.
The reserve is a wash of gorgeous fluffy young birds now including increasing numbers of lapwing, avocet and redshank. The warden team did a few surveys this week and the maps are just peppered with nests they found.
Avocet and chicks by Roy Lowry
Star sighting
Star sighting for this week has got to be the white winged black tern that appeared over border pool Friday morning and stayed all day Saturday with some great views from the visitor centre.
White-winged black tern by Pete Sutton
Wardens' wanderings
It’s been a busy breeding season, so important surveys and constant monitoring of key species and new arrivals keep the warden team busy. Redshank surveys are ongoing out on the marsh and onsite at Burton Mere Wetlands the team have been monitoring the number of wader nest and at this point are looking great. Lapwing have 114, avocet 58 and redshank 31. They have also been monitoring the cattle egret and spoonbill activity and a third spoonbill has caused a bit of disturbance to the pair but they do seem to have settled now.
Get involved
The May family quiz trail ‘Baby Birds’ is still out for all the family to learn and get inspired.
The next guided walk is the Spring Wildlife Wander there are still spaces on Wednesday 29 May for a casual look at anything and everything of interest on the day. For more information click here.
Don’t forget on the Sunday 16 June Dads go Free. For more information click here.
On Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 June, we have an Optics Demo for chance to get expert advice and try a broad range of binoculars and telescopes before ordering from our new shop. For more information click here.
On Friday 2 and Saturday 3 August. Family visitors can start booking on our Big Wild Sleepout. For more information click here.