The weather may have started off dreadfully this week, but it has certainly got better over the last couple of days, and that seems to have brought out quite a lot of birds in the area too. Little over half an hour after we opened on Wednesday morning, one of our regular visitors came to say that he had spotted a little egret at Pickup Hide. And later that day, an eagle eyed visitor reported that a greenshank, a wren…

Well, it’s my last day of work experience here at Fairburn Ings, and I’ve had a fantastic time over the last two weeks. During my time here, I got valuable experience in just about all aspects of work around the reserve, from working with the reserve team maintaining the site, to being in the office writing things for the Fairburn Ings blog, just like the one you’re reading now!

I wasn’t really expecting…

It’s my first week here on work experience at Fairburn Ings and this morning I had chance to get involved in identifying and catching the moths that are present on the reserve so thought I’d share with you what we found...

The weather at the moment seems to be remaining quite nice around Fairburn, and that has brought with it another huge variety of moths to our moth trap which we put outside every Thursday…

Summer may not be quite in full flow yet, but that has put off neither the visitors, nor the wildlife around Fairburn recently, and those that came on Tuesday were treated to seeing great numbers of birds, especially on the New Path. A couple of visitors came to tell us yesterday morning that a female, as well as a juvenile redstart were spotted on the New Path, much to their admiration. And only an hour after they were…

The new path (yet to be named - suggestions welcome!) is turning up some treats today with a family of redstarts (male, female and juvenile) flitting in and out of a hawthorn bush just past the first bench. A little further along the turtle doves are still showing from the wires on the other side of the river. Also by the river were a family of willow tits and a yellowhammer.

A jay seen at the feeder screen and on the…

On Monday a bat was seen skimming the surface of the pond dipping pool for a quick drink. We have several species of bat at Fairburn Ings but the most commonly seen are the common pipstrelle, noctule and daubenton. Daubenton's will also feed close to or even straight off the surface of the water, scooping their prey up in their tail 'membrane'.

The hummingbird hawkmoth was seen again on both Monday and Tuesday…

The weather yesterday was beautiful - sunny enough that the dragonflies and butterflies were out in abundance but not so hot that everything else was just hiding in the shade. This meant we had an amazing day of sightings, so many in fact that we had to start another sheet to stick in the sightings book!

If you haven't already been along the new Riverside Walk, then it's a must because there's been so much seen and heard…