There’s been some great wildlife spotted from Pickup Hide this week. The pool is quite sheltered and seems to be popular with mallards raising their young. The water and reedbeds also attracts a wide variety of other bird life. On Sunday there were 6 snipe plus a green sandpiper, there have been little egrets feeding there regularly, with 3 or 4 seen throughout the week, and 6 there today! There have also been oystercatchers, lapwings, redshank, grey herons, and even one of the most elusive birds on the reserve, a water rail, which was seen on Thursday. We often get grey wagtails on top of the sand martin bank, and there is still a sand martin making use of the sand martin bank. The feeders at Pickup are popular with tree sparrows, chaffinches, green finches, great tits and blue tits plus the occasional jay. Pickup Hide is only 2 or 3 minutes walk from the visitor centre, so its easily accessible to pretty much anyone. Just a bit of patience and a pair of binoculars is all you need, if you don’t own any then you can borrow a pair at the visitor centre, just ask one of the team.
Elsewhere at Fairburn it’s insect heaven, we’ve had hundreds of butterflies, lots of gatekeepers, meadow browns, small tortoiseshells, plus the occasional comma, I took this photo of a comma on some purple loosestrife by the small pond dipping pond. There are plenty of dragonflies and damselflies around too, we have lots of common blue and azure damselflies, they are often seen flying along the footpaths, basking in the sun.
Earlier this week there were several sightings of a redstart near Phalarope pool, just a passing visitor though, it hasn’t been seen since Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, Darren(our site manager) and Chris (our visitor experience manager), spotted a bittern at Phalarope pool.
At Lin Dike we’ve had sightings of little egrets, greenshank, redshank, little ringed plover, lapwings, plus two green woodpeckers on the path down to Lin Dike. The kingfisher has been seen at the kingfisher screen this week, but sightings are infrequent there, a better location may be Cut Lane and Charlie’s Hide, where an otter was spotted last Sunday.
It’s a great time of year to visit Fairburn Ings, there so much to see. You don’t have to know the names of everything to enjoy your visit, but if you do want a bit of help identifying wildlife then ask one of our volunteer rangers, who are often out and about on the reserve, or ask in the visitor centre.