It’s been a quiet few days on the reserve with this wintery weather and we’ve all got our fingers crossed for some warmer weather over Easter. We’ve seen a few signs of birds getting ready for spring, they’ve been checking out nest boxes and from our office we could a pair of tree sparrows taking nest materials into one of the boxes outside the centre.
The feeders outside the visitor centre have been full of action as usual. Here’s a very long list of all our hungry visitors: blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long tailed tits, willow tits, blackbirds, house sparrows, tree sparrows, dunnocks, robins, nuthatches, bullfinches, chaffinches, greenfinches, goldfinches, siskins, reed buntings, red polls, moorhens, mallards, pheasants and collared doves. Phew!
We’ve had a couple of rarer visitors as well on the reserve including a meadow pipit near the boardwalk, a stonechat around Hickson’s field, an Iceland gull on Main Bay and a rough-legged buzzard. We’ve also had a male and female smew over at Pick-up but they decided to hide behind the reeds when I went to have a look!
Kingfishers are being seen down the Cut and at the kingfisher screen. On Village Bay, visitors have spotted tufted duck, pochard, gadwall, goosander, golden eye, teal and wigeon.
And at Pick-up hide today there’s been a sighting of a chiffchaff. The chiffchaff is a small olive-brown warbler and is more easily recognised by it's song, as it sings it's own name.
We love hearing about what you’ve seen on the reserve so make sure you let us know in the recent sightings book next to the till in the shop.
Image of the chiffchaff from John Bridges RSPB-images