If you've visited Fairburn Ings recently you'll have seen the dry stone wall that Nick and Tanya have been building along the path to the visitor centre. The wall should provide some great habitat for insects, reptiles and mammals too as our volunteer Joe saw today when a bank vole popped out onto the path near the visitor centre before scampering round and straight back in!
Also seen from the balcony was a kestrel perched on the telegraph pole over the road yesterday.
Across the rest of the site today we've had Herons seen from Bob Dickens and Lin Dike, also from Lin Dike 5 greenshank and 2 spotted flycatcher and at the moat, just a bit further up the road were 5 snipe, 2 green sandpiper, 2 more greenshank and a ruff. At Pickup Ginny our ranger clocked up a list of 23 bird species, including reed and willow warbler, lapwing, pied wagtail and a wren flitting to and from the coot nesting platform in front of the hide. Lots of our visitors were also treated to glimpses of the weasel, once again chasing around the hide and discovery trail.
Over the last couple of days we've had more greenshank, green sandpiper, buzzards and little egrets across the site. A grey partridge from the new path along the River Aire, willow tit and a treecreeper around the Discovery Trail. Across Spoonbil and Phalarope flashes have been gadwall, shoveller, common sandpiper, yellow wagtail, a fox, a peregrine, whinchat, linnets, chiff chaff and common tern.
2 unusual sightings for Fairburn were a brown argus butterfly, seen right at the beginning of the New Path and a wood warbler on the Riverbank Trail.
Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)