Another blog, and another mention of snow! Although as I speak the fresh snow we had last night is quickly melting. Due to the bad weather we’ve not had as many visitors treading the paths and reporting their sightings, but those who have been out have seen some great wildlife.
The farmer pulled up a crop of sugar beet in the field opposite the reserve on Friday, the fresh earth attracted all sorts of wildlife including a carrion crow, rook, 2 pheasants, 2 red legged partridges and some black headed gulls. The black headed gulls are gathering in big numbers on the reserve at the moment, (today we have a report of over 1000 of them here). They are often seen congregating on the extension to the duck and swan feeding platform. They don’t really have their black head yet, but keep your eye on them as it develops over the next few weeks.
There have been several sightings of winter visitors to the reserve like goosanders, goldeneyes, field fares and bramblings. There was a female smew seen on the river today and a little grebe yesterday. We’ve also had a kingfisher, some long tailed tits, shelducks, teal and herons at Charlie’s Hide; reed buntings, bullfinches, herons, bramblings and a stoat seen from Pickup Hide. The wildlife garden next to the visitor centre is a hive of activity with lots of tree sparrows, blue tits, great tits, chaffinches, green finches and black birds eating as much seed as they can so they can survive the cold weather, some lucky visitors have seen nuthatches, treecreepers and goldcrests from the comfort of the visitor centre.
We’d love to see you down at the reserve, and always enjoy hearing about your sightings.
The image of a female smew is provided by Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)