The snow has arrived at Fairburn Ings and the reserve is looking stunning. A lot of the pools have frozen over, but the wildlife seems to cope quite well. The smaller birds are pretty much reliant on the bird feeders, which we are keeping topped up on a daily basis here. Make sure you’re doing the same in your garden. All the usual suspects are seen on a regular basis at our feeders at the visitor centre including chaffinches, blue tits, great tits, tree sparrows, gold finches, bull finches and green finches, plus a handful of nut hatches, flurries of long tailed tits, a few reed buntings and a great spotted woodpecker, guaranteed to cause the rest of the birds to take cover in the trees. We have been making feeders from birch tree logs, and this feeder in particular is popular with the tree creeper, probably because it is more comfortable clambering up and down a bit of tree than a plastic feeder.
We’ve also had sightings of little egrets which flew over the visitor car park yesterday, a snipe was spotted on the side of Newton Road, a kingfisher on Cut Lane and a wax wing at the kingfisher screen.
Don’t forget to note your sightings in our book in the visitor centre if you come to the reserve. We love to hear about what you’ve seen during your visit.