The world has gone a bit dinosaur mad at the moment with the release of the newest Jurassic Park film - well we have plenty of modern-day dinos here at Fairburn Ings! Looking at some birds it isn’t hard to see their dinosaur lineage; cormorants are probably one of the most pre-historic looking birds we have on the reserve – they look like pterodactyls flying overhead.
Cormorant - Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Ducks don’t look much like their scaly ancestors, but there are loads of different types with a range of different patterns and colours. It’s been quite a nice week for ducks, with wigeon, garganey and teal all spotted. Male teals have a chestnut brown head and distinctive green eyespot; male wigeons also have a chestnut head with a yellow patch on their forehead.
Teal - Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Wigeon - John Bridges (rspb-images.com)
On the flashes we still have frequent sightings of bittern, as well as redshanks and even a secretive water rail. The legs of these birds have a particular reptilian quality about them (like lots of birds) and they walk a bit like how velociraptors are thought to have walked!
Redshank - Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
On the subject of raptors, we have a few different ones here at Fairburn. Don’t worry, the ones here won’t hunt you down and ambush you in the visitor centre! Modern day raptors are fantastic predators that use their keen eyesight to hunt and feed on other animals (smaller than you and I). Thursday was a great day for raptors on the reserve, with red kite, marsh harrier, kestrel, hobby and buzzard all seen!
Red Kite - Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)
The demise of the dinosaurs paved the way for mammals to take over. You might have seen a bit of footage from our new mammal log that me and David the warden intern have worked on. We’ve had a lot of success with it so far with mice and voles caught on camera. We’ve also had a few surprises that I won’t spoil for you, but keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter for more footage!