We've had a really busy week here at Fairburn Ings, both in terms of human and wildlife visitors. The sightings book is overflowing with a wide variety of birds. At Pickup we’ve had lots of sightings of green sandpiper, greenshank, common sandpiper, oyster catcher and curlew. Plus a few sightings of yellow wagtail, heron, little ringed plover, kingfisher, great spotted woodpecker, and marsh harrier. There’s also been a roe deer and stoat seen.
Down at Lin Dike there have been lots of pied wagtails, greenshank and linnets, plus garganey, little gull, common tern, arctic tern, dunlin, a kestrel and snipe. A juvenile marsh harrier has been seen, plus a juvenile cuckoo.
The new path has been a great spot for birders since we opened it a few months ago, the redstart family are often seen down there, plus a variety of warblers including reed warblers, wood warblers, willow warblers and chiffchaff. There have also been sightings of yellow hammer, linnet, white throat, kingfisher green woodpecker and blackcap.
Along the river bank trail we’ve had reed warblers, linnet, kingfishers, blackcap, greenfinch, and green woodpecker.
Near the visitor centre we’ve had the usual large numbers of tree sparrows, bullfinch, blue tit, great tit, coal tit and greenfinch. Somebody spotted a weasel on the boardwalk.
The buzzards have been circling over New Plantation, and a hobby was seen by village bay.
The butterflies are out in force, we’ve had lots of peacocks, green-veined white, gatekeeper and meadow brown. We also had a sighting of the beautiful purple hairstreak. We also got lots of damselflies and dragonflies at the moment, have a look around the ponds and wildflower borders in the discovery trail for common darters, ruddy darters, black tailed damselflies and common blue damselflies.
The highlight of the week has been a juvenile cuckoo being fed by a dunnock, you can just about make out the dunnock sat on the back of the cuckoo in the photo below. This scene has been observed on several occasions down the new footpath towards the Lin Dike end of the reserve.