This weekend was time for the 'Big Garden Birdwatch' and we celebrated in style at Fairburn Ings. After several radio appearances on Saturday we had our special event on Sunday. It was great to see so many people on the reserve with a lot coming along to find out more about 'Big Garden Birdwatch' In the centre we had garden bird mask making and 'create your own plastic bottle bird feeder' for children and a question and answer table for grown ups. Outside we had three guided walks around our garden bird discovery trail. In the morning we did our own survey at the wild garden and clocked up an amazing 20 species in one hour.
Robin 3 Coal tit 1
Bullfinch 5 Collard dove 2
Pheasant 3 Tree Sparrow 13
Moorhen 2 Greenfinch 2
Goldfinch 6 Long tailed tit 6
Dunnock 5 Redpoll 1
Chaffinch 2 Great spotted woodpecker 1
Blackbird 3 Willow tit 1
Blue Tit 4 Reed bunting 1
Great Tit 2 House sparrow 1
All in all it was a great weekend!
Bullfinch (Sue tranter rspb images)
Elsewhere on the reserve a long-eared owl has returned to the usual roosting site at Lin Dyke and has been seen for several days. It can be difficult to spot because it tends to perch in hawthorn very close to the reed line and it can take a bit of patience to pick it out.
Redpoll are still being seen in large numbers with flocks of up to 200 being seen in the silver birch around the board walk and along main bay.
Other birds seen over the last week included goosanders, smew, whooper swans, kingfishers, water rails, pin tails and goldeneye. The white fronted geese are still at Lin Dyke,