Singing skylarks, dancing grebes, daffodils, snowdrops, hogweed shoots, bumblebees and even the odd butterfly. Could it be nearly spring? The anticipation is building! It may have been windy and the water is very high across the reserve – it’s all the way up to Pickup hide – but the sun is starting to have some heat in it and at least one person in the office has cracked their shorts out.
This week we switched to the spring challenge in the playground
That said, we haven’t finished with winter yet. 20+ waxwings flew over the visitor centre on Wednesday. This is one of only a few sightings on the reserve all winter, a couple of weeks ago there were two birds in the bushes directly opposite the centre, they stayed and ate berries for around fifteen minutes, giving a big crowd some incredible views, before flying off to strip berries elsewhere.
Waxwing, Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
The male smew and red headed smew are still around, generally seen on Village Bay from Cut Lane, I had a report this week that suggests the red head is actually a male as his adult plumage appears to be coming through.
The great white egret is also still around, less reliably on Cedric’s pool now though, instead it is regularly seen flying around.
Curlew, Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Out on Main Bay, and across the flashes there are still large numbers of shelduck, shoveler, teal, wigeon, goosander and black-headed gulls, with the odd pintail and goldeneye thrown in for good measure. 33 curlew were also reported out on spoonbill flash this week, along with three white fronted geese and a single barnacle goose in amongst the Canada geese.
Stoat, Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)
There have also been lots of interesting mammal reports recently. Lots of exciting weasel sightings, one was even carrying a vole. There are still plenty of bank vole sightings near Pickup hide and even an ermine stoat seen on the Riverbank Trail.
It’s binocular and telescope weekend coming up so if you would like to chat to anyone about optical equipment we’ll have extra staff and volunteers ready to welcome you this weekend.
Hope you all enjoy the sun!