The first day of spring has been and gone yet we’re waking up to snow here! We still managed to have some fun outdoors though and made a snowman in our playground. We even hung a feeder off his arm in the hope of attracting some birds. Thanks to Joe, one of our volunteers for the great pic!
We’re getting an increasing number of kingfisher sightings which is great! There’s also been a report of a very loud boom from a bittern which everyone is very excited about. We still have quite of few winter visitors due to the cold weather such as redwings, brambling, fieldfare and plenty of siskin.
On our wildlife garden feeders we have the usual visitors including tree sparrows, reed bunting, bullfinch, redpoll, nuthatches and a pair of willow tits. There was also a sparrow hawk spotted on one of the logs under the feeders!
Over on Hickson’s Flash there have been lots of snipe, a jack snipe, some redshank and two avocets. At Pick-up we’ve had some whooper swans and elsewhere on the reserve visitors have spotted three kittiwakes, two little owls, a red kite and lots of buzzards.
I saw my first weasel on Wednesday; well the back of it as it quickly ran off down the road! Rob managed to spot it as we were leaving the staff car park and it was much smaller than I expected.
This Thursday is our first Heron Walk so if you fancy coming along to see our resident herons rear their chicks please get in touch! See our website for more details www.rspb.org.uk/fairburnings