It’s been a great year for sightings at Fairburn Ings, so as well as what’s been seen over the past few days, I though we should revisit some of the year’s wildlife highlights.
Although I only got here in September, it’s a pretty difficult task to try and pick out my favourite wildlife moments – I've seen so many incredible things whilst I’ve been here, it’s hard to choose! One of the best experiences though was arriving in a fairly warm September to be greeted by such a dazzling array of butterflies and dragonflies, which filled the air around the reserve with their jewel bright colours.
There were a lot of speckled wood butterflies around – these beautiful smoky brown and cream butterflies are best seen in dappled sunlight within a woodland, where, as their name suggests, they are often found. The stand-out dragonflies for me were the migrant hawkers and ruddy darters – dragonflies are incredible creatures, capable of performing amazing acrobatic feats with their four wings, which are all controlled independently!
Speckled wood and ruddy darter
Continuing with the invertebrate theme, I got to grips with my fears and photographed a lot of really beautiful spiders – all I had to do was get a bit closer to appreciate their delicate beauty!
European garden spider
We had some fantastic moths in our trap during the autumn, including the appropriately named autumnal rustic, angle shades and frosted orange, to name but a few. Always underappreciated, but every bit as beautiful and remarkable as butterflies (dare I say more so), moths are one of my favourite creatures.
Autumnal Rustic and Angle Shades
There was some truly fantastic fungus around in the autumn, not least the larger than life fly agaric. This iconic fungus of legend and storybooks was a sight to behold, with its ruby red fruit encrusted with cream coloured scales.
Fly Agaric fungi
It’s been a great year in the mammal stakes too, with an otter sighted near Bob Dickens hide. These wonderful creatures have made a fantastic comeback along with the increasing health of our rivers in the UK, so it was great to have one spotted on the reserve. Despite a 2012 full of floods and devastation, we also discovered evidence of harvest mice this autumn. Their tiny grass-woven nests are wonderful to behold, and it’s incredible that these tiny mammals were able to hold on and survive to breed again after a washout seven floods on the reserve last year.
Harvest mouse nests
Although I wasn’t around to hear it at the time, the spring of 2013 held the delight of two booming male bitterns on the reserve. Although it’s not thought that they bred at Fairburn this year, these birds, along with those at nearby St. Aidan’s who are thought to have nested, make up a significant proportion of the Bittern population in the UK! It’s great to think that the Aire Valley may one day be a stronghold for one of the UK’s once most vulnerable breeding birds.
I was lucky enough to be here when two fantastic birds made October begin with a bang – the great white egret and red-necked phalarope drew great crowds to the reserve, and no wonder. The great egret doesn’t breed in the UK, but individuals turn up at random all over the UK year-round. It was a stunning bird, bigger than a heron, with pure white plumage that made it a sight to behold in the air. Relatively few people ever get to see red-necked phalaropes either, as these tiny little waders are extremely rare, only breeding in the far northern and north-western isles of Scotland.
Back to the present, and we’ve had a couple of rather special sightings over the past few days. There was a merlin spotted on Friday – these tiny falcons are quite similar in shape and colour to sparrowhawks, although much smaller, as our smallest UK bird of prey. They are present in low numbers all over the country, although in winter the population increases as Icelandic birds migrate over to enjoy our warmer climate.
Merlin artwork by Mike Langman (rspb-images.com)
Another unusual visitor was a juvenile Iceland gull yesterday. These birds breed in the Arctic, so are occasional winter visitors to the UK, where they will usually be seen on their own. These birds have very pale plumage and white wing tips, and are sometimes referred to as the ‘white-winged’ gull.
That wraps it up for this year, so a happy new year to you all from all the staff and volunteers at Fairburn Ings! We look forward to seeing you in the new year, which we hope will be just as brilliant as this one for the wildlife on the reserve.