For the last three months I have been the Warden Intern at Fairburn Ings, living close to the reserve in Fairburn village. One of the perks of being a residential volunteer is being able to spend time on the reserve when things are quiet, early in the mornings and in the long summer evenings.
As I cycle through the reserve on my way home at the end a busy day, I stop off at Charlie’s hide and sit for a while, it’s the best time of day to visit as the sun is directly behind the hide, giving excellent visibility in the evening sun.
Goosander, Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)
Last Tuesday, I was rewarded with a pretty amazing half an hour. As I arrived around eighty canada geese upped and vacated the spit, sailing off towards the village, resembling an Atlantic convoy. The exodus revealed a variety of other spit visitors, a handsome male goosander sat hiding his dark green head and long hooked bill under his wing, several lapwings wading in the shallows, and a trio of juvenile mallards displaying their D.A.s. like a team of synchronized swimmers.
Oystercatcer, Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)
As the geese departed a female mallard arrived with a large brood of tiny, manic ducklings, at the most a day or two old, franticly jostling for position to stay close to mum. As they tumbled onto the shore I managed to count eight, they were then ushered into a small patch of vegetation where they vanished beneath their mother and settled down for the evening.
Common tern, David Tipling (rspb-images.com)
A brief period of tranquillity was then broken by a pair of noisy oyster catchers crashing in, one literally, cart-wheeling head over heels, before indignantly stumbling to its feet, ‘nothing to see here!’ In contrast a pair of great crested grebes elegantly arrived on the scene, hardly causing a ripple, with their pride and joy, a single, striped chick following closely behind .
Roe buck, Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)
The action continued with a common tern scanning the waters immediately in front of the hide, before plummeting below the still surface to emerge with its unsuspecting victim. As my thoughts started to drift towards that nights tea (probably yet another ‘prick and ping’, courtesy of Kippax Co-op) the evening silence was shattered by a large crash and splash.
Out of the undergrowth bounded, not the large dog I was expecting, but a handsome buck roe deer, stopping no more than fifteen feet in front of me, his chestnut coat glowing in the sunshine. He stared right at me for what seemed like ages, but in reality seconds, before athletically departing stage left and vanishing once more, breathtaking!
Kingfisher, Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)
Assuming that was the end of the show I started to make a move (the ping of the microwave was now calling), only to be stopped in my tracks by an electric blue flash as a kingfisher darted across the spit in a final encore.
Not a bad half hour!
Great read. Charlie's is my favourite. Really can't beat being out 'after hours', makes the encounters seem even more special.
Pete
What a lovely report Sally, and what a wonderful evening ! I'm just back from Charlie's and I had to"make do" with two kingfishers, what must be a second brood of mallard ducklings,a flotilla of Canadas, wigeon, tufted duck, several swans,a lapwing,and the usual coots and grebes.. On interesting thing I observed was that the old grebe and coot sites in the willow scrubs were now being occupied by black headed gull nests--second brood from somewhere else or they have been on the housing list waiting for a vacancy ??What do you think ?
Steve