It’s a beautiful morning at Fairburn Ings with plenty of young chirping to be heard! Juvenile tree sparrows and blue tits can be seen fluttering in the trees whilst young cygnus are plentiful on the water. It’s great to watch all the tentative parents busy with their broods. Don’t you just love spring? After the heavy rains this week our butterfly counts have been slightly lower but still we were still treated with 6 pairs of common blue butterfly by the riverside on Tuesday. It is quite straight forward to tell the difference between a female and male common blue, unlike some butterflies! The female common blue has a slightly browny-blue tint to its wings compared to the slightly larger male common blue with its striking bright blue wings. They are quite a hardy species of butterfly despite their small angelic appearance, having mostly two broods a year and seen throughout the whole of the UK.
Male common blue butterfly – www.ukbutterflies.co.uk
We’ve had a lot of ‘celebrity’ bird species as I like to call them these past few weeks with the most sought-after of course being the glossy ibis. Spotted last Sunday there was soon a whirlwind of excitement as many watchers came to catch a quick glimpse! The glossy ibis commonly migrates to southern Europe however we do get the odd one overshooting and ending up in the UK and delightfully one has came to visit us at Fairburn Ings. Unfortunately it’s now thought to have moved on towards Old Moor but it just shows you, you never know what visitors will turn up here on the reserve this time of year!
Glossy ibis – Graham Catley (RSPB)
Two black terns were spotted by Charlie’s Hide earlier this week passing through feeding on fish and other invertebrates most likely from America. Speaking of black birds... a black necked grebe was also seen over on New Flash. Our three great crested grebe chicks are still doing great over at Charlie’s hide. I spent a while watching as the chicks copied their mother by dipping under water and popping back up, looking thoroughly confused as to why she just dipped under! We have avocets still about on main bay breeding although it’s harder to spot them because of all the commotion of black-headed gulls becoming territorial over their chicks!
Black- necked grebe – Jenny Thorne (Fairburn volunteer)
I think a lot of us at the reserve are becoming complacent with hearing and seeing cuckoos. Especially after watching Springwatch these past two weeks and seeing the truly amazing ways in which they have adapted themselves to become the world’s laziest parents and cleverest chicks! Many of us have found it fascinating how the chick has the special ridge on its back especially designed for pushing the other eggs out of the nest. I can’t get over how its born with that notion that its got to get rid of the other chicks in order to survive, some would think its evil but I think its incredibly clever! Cuckoos can be heard from all round the reserve but there is definitely one which is quite regularly heard from a copse of trees on the way to Lyn Dyke from the riverbank... and he’s a good hider!
Cuckoo chick pushing eggs out of a reed warbler nest – Mike Richards (RSPB-images)
Honeysuckle has started to flower over the past few weeks with one patch just by the kissing gate on the riverbank trail. Although some don’t like these creeping shrubs for there suffocating nature, it’s hard not to love the scent of their sweet edible nectar! They are one of my all time favourite climbing shrubs. Fox gloves are also out in force throughout the birch woodland, with pink ragged robins just on riverbank path. You may also be lucky to spot some marsh orchids on the reserve just up past the kingfisher screen on Redshale road. Marsh plants have been dwindling for quite a few years because of land use changes however the marsh orchid seems to be one of the hardier marsh plant species and still equally as lovely to behold!
Marsh orchid – Andy Hay (RSPB-images)