The reserve team had a fantastic surprise last week whilst clearing out the nest boxes around the reserve ready for the next breeding season – two tiny wood mice nestled at the bottom of one of the boxes! They had obviously made a cosy little bolt hole for themselves in amongst the hawthorn leaves, and were taking shelter from the cold using the wooden box as insulation.

Wood mice in a nest box! Image by Chris…

I’m happy to report that after a few weeks of not seeing many wildfowl around the reserve, they seem to be back with a vengeance!! Large flocks of wigeon have been spotted on the flashes from Lin Dyke hide and the Lin Dyke link trail – wigeon are definitely one of my favourites because the males have such beautiful colours. The soft colours of their buff peachy chests, grey wings and white rump patch contrast perfectly…

I couldn’t resist taking advantage of the widespread frost this Monday morning to walk into work through the reserve from Fairburn village and spot some amazing wildlife in the cold. And I’m very glad I did!

At eight o’clock Monday morning everything was cloaked in a thick layer of sparkling frost. The sky was bathed in muted pastel colours of pink and purple, and the moon was reflected off the surface…

It’s been a rather busy week here at Fairburn Ings, so there are lots of lovely wildlife sightings to catch you up on! Possibly the star of the week is the Marsh Harrier which has been seen daily from Pickup hide since Sunday. Although these beautiful birds are seen with reasonable regularity, daily sightings are certainly worth comment!

Marsh Harriers are the largest of the Harriers, and can be recognised even…

It’s about time we had a sightings blog from lovely St. Aidan’s – before you ask, we’re still not back on site (groan!), but we’re hopeful that the new year will bring developments. The site itself is still open, with public rights of way and bridleways covering the majority of the paths, so there are still plenty visitors there to spot wildlife – it’s also a favourite haunt of several Fairburn staff too, given that it…

We’ve had a brilliant start to the New Year sightings-wise, with plenty of visitors in over the holidays to keep us up to date with the wildlife around the reserve.

On Saturday an enormous skein of around 350 pink-footed geese passed over the reserve. These geese don’t breed in the UK, but spend their winters here in large numbers, mainly in coastal areas in England and Scotland. Their breeding grounds for the…

You may be hearing more and more about a little thing called the Big Garden Birdwatch over the coming weeks...ok, maybe it’s not so little. It is in fact the world’s biggest wildlife survey, and we had nearly 600,000 people take part across the nation in last year’s Birdwatch, which is absolutely fantastic!

If you haven’t taken part before (this will be my first year!), then here’s how it works...…

A year ago I was coming to the end of my days at university, still wondering what I wanted to do with my life and feeling pretty directionless, to be honest. By chance I stumbled across the RSPB's advert for residential internships - it sounded like a fantastic way to have some adventure, develop my skills, and hopefully pursue a future career in conservation. The prospect of volunteering for an entire year was a little…