Posting on behalf of Katie Ellis
Recent sightings
Autumn is moving towards winter, the leaves disappearing off the trees and Burton Mere has seen lots of change in the last couple of weeks and not just due to the seasons. The visitor centre smells of fresh paint, there’s a new welcome cabin in the car park and the Inner Marsh Farm accessibility improvement project is close to completion; seemingly every day there’s been something different going on!
The Scrape and Bridge Pool have been quieter whilst the warden team and contractors are busy transporting materials over for the new hide and path, whilst the new electric fence has gradually extended around the Bridge Pool and Centenary Pool as another contractor continues its installation.
On calmer days we’ve seen flocks of teal, wigeon, pintail, shoveler, shelduck, lapwing, black-tailed godwit, snipe, ruff and dunlin. Spotted redshank have also been an occasional sighting with up to four seen a week ago, more difficult to identify out of their summer plumage.
Single spotted redshank (centre) in winter plumage (Paul Jubb)
Small woodland birds are now much more visible along the tree-lined paths. Robins are greeting visitors on arrival, perched on posts along the decking. Wrens are also hopping around the visitor centre area, popping out from small gaps around the decking and fence posts and keen eyes will spot treecreepers scuttling around the old oaks here.
Coal tits join the mix of goldfinches chaffinches, blue tits, and great tits jostling for position on the bird feeders, whilst siskins and long-tailed tits are around in sizeable flocks in trees around the former fishponds and the edge of Marsh Covert. Cetti’s warblers are normally just heard, but now they’re much easier to see amidst sparse vegetation. Green woodpeckers are also a common sight, most frequently over the railway bridge on Burton Point field.
A friendly robin (Paul Jubb)
Skeins of pink-footed geese continue to cover the skies morning and evening and they increased their movements during the recent high tides. Recent counts estimate over 7,000 of them on the estuary already, but this can peak at nearly three times that towards the end of winter. Our winter visiting whooper swans are also occasionally flying through the reserve and stopping off for short periods of time, and even possibly roosting on the pools at night.
On fairer days and between rain showers, we’re seeing ringtail hen harriers and marsh harriers gliding across the scrape regularly. Early last week, an adult male hen harrier, one of at least two on the estuary at present, showed off with a flight close to the visitor centre. Plenty of action from our smaller raptors too; a sparrowhawk was seen trying to grab small bird for lunch from the visitor centre birdfeeders and a merlin was perching on a post before continuing its hunting around the reserve.
Over the railway, on the estuary short-eared owls have returned for the winter, at times seen from their usual best spot at Parkgate Old Baths, but also recently at Burton Marsh following the recent big tides leaving much of the saltmarsh flooded.
After a period of no sightings, visitors have started spotting little owls again at Burton Point, mainly seen on the sandstone cliff face from the Burton Marsh Greenway, but also occasionally visible in trees or fenceposts from the hillfort side within Burton Mere Wetlands.
Egrets have been brilliant the past couple of weeks, great white egrets are in good numbers out on the estuary and there’s been up to 32 of them coming into roost at Burton Mere in the evenings. With the nights drawing in, it is a great to sight to see such vast numbers of them flying into their favoured trees on The Mere. Which nicely brings us on to our star species…
Star sighting
Although nothing new, our star species this week has to be the cattle egrets, whose numbers have continued to rise through the autumn. A new record was set this week with up to 18 visible at and around Burton Mere Wetlands at one time; 15 with the highland cattle – which incidentally have become much more visible since being moved onto the Bridge Pool grassland – and three more on the neighbouring farm field close to Bunker hide. At least 10 came into the egret roost on the Wednesday 18 November, tucked in with the little egrets and great white egrets. There’s also been a handful reported with cattle on farms to the east around Puddington and Two Mills, so it’s certainly a fantastic year for seeing them and reports suggest there’s as many as 20 in total in the local area.
View of cattle egrets from the tractor (Becky Longden)
Wardens wanderings
Our warden team have been kept busy supporting contractors with the continuing work on the construction of the new hide, path and electric fence. The hide is now complete and looks brilliant – look out for more information on that in the days ahead. With the remote location of the hide, bringing materials across the reserve has been a real test of their tractor driving skills and involved a lot of mud!
New hide (John Hewitt)
The path extension from the Inner Marsh Farm hide to the new hide location was completed this week and the volunteer work parties were kept busy with the mammoth task of installing kick boards to the edges of the fen boardwalk to ensure its safe use by wheelchairs, along with helping cut and rake extensive areas of rush cut around the new hide to open up the view when it opens. They’ve also been out helping with the winter cutting of the reeds in front of Reedbed screen whilst the water levels are low.
View through the freshly cut reeds (Liz Boone)
This week we’ve bid farewell to the Inner Marsh Farm hide to make way for the new electric fence; as the contractors progressed, it became apparent the most efficient route for the fence was straight along the top of the bank where the old hide sat, so the hide was dismantled by contractors already working on the path extension in that area.
Inner Marsh Farm hide held fond memories for many with some brilliant sightings seen from there, but the new hide a little further down will impress with its spacious layout and great views onto Centenary and Border Pools. The electric predator-exclusion fence will also support and increase wader productivity, so there’ll be lots more to see and boost vital numbers of waders like lapwing and avocet, as has happened in front of the visitor centre.
There’s also been some improvements around the visitor centre. The centre and toilet block are now looking much smarter, having had a protective varnish applied to protect it for years to come. The boardwalk leading off to the east side of the reserve has also had repair works levelling it out.
East side boardwalk (Dan Trotman)
The East Bank viewpoint has been made winter proof with some plastic matting to protect the grass surface and prevent visitors from slipping, installed by assistant warden Liz, ensuring the wonderful views of the main scrape can continue; it’s currently a great place to watch the sunset over the Clwydians.
Grass mats up slope to East Bank viewpoint (Liz Boone)
Get involved
With December nearly here, we’re seeing the national lockdown come to an end and a return of the three-tiered system in England. We continue to advise all visitors to check their local guidelines before deciding to visit us and follow all current Government guidance around social distancing, who you can visit with, hygiene and follow all signage on-site. We urge you to also follow Government guidance on non-essential travel and please stay local to your nearest reserves and greenspaces. We'll be announcing full details about reserve access after lockdown within the next few days.
For those who have visited recently, you may have noticed our welcome trailer has been replaced with a wooden welcome hut in the car park. For our busier days, we will be providing a meet and greet for visitors from the hut, please check in with us before heading out onto the reserve. On quieter days for now at least, we will be continuing our welcome from the visitor centre, where our take-away catering is also available, with some delicious new snacks available, gluten free and vegan millionaire shortbread and fruit cake, perfect with a warming brew after a walk around the trails.
Welcome hut (Elliot Wilson)