As the water has gone down since last weeks flooding, our sightings have gone up! The reserve is now completely accessible, and clean up is well underway, which means more sightings to report from our lovely visitors.

The first siskin of this winter was spotted in the Wildlife Garden this week. They are regular winter visitors to the reserve, with larger numbers coming in from Europe. Bullfinches, long tailed tits, nuthatches…

Watching Fairburn Ings being engulfed by flood water always makes me a little anxious about how our wildlife can possibly survive the devastation.  However, we’ve seen plenty of amazing feats at Fairburn in the past, from swans building up their nests in sync with rapidly rising water levels, to entire coot nests being washed downstream, and the chicks successfully hatching days later. 

Our latest tale of survival…

It's been a bit of a soggy week at Fairburn Ings this week, with the flooding on the site.  However, the floods have brought a lot of wildlife up towards dry land at the visitor centre so we've had a fair amount of wildlife spotted from the comfort and warmth inside.

Flooding at Lin Dike

We've been unable to access the bird feeders at Pickup hide or the feeder screen because of the floods so the only feeders…

The Fairburn Ings site flooded on Sunday evening.  Since then, we've had lots of enquiries about why the site has flooded, how it happened and why it's such a large flood here when surrounding urban areas are seemingly left unscathed.  So here is the tale of flooding at Fairburn Ings:

Fairburn is a washland, designated by the Environment Agency, to protect the surrounding urban areas, such as Castleford, from flooding…

With the temperature starting to drop, things are starting to feel much more wintery on the reserve. Large flocks of migrating fieldfares have been seen flying over head. These thrushes are usually seen in large flocks and, along with redwings, are a sure fire sign that winter is arriving. There have been teals, shovelers, tufted ducks, goosanders, great crested grebes, pochards and goldeneyes spotted on the Main Bay and at…

I've spent a lot of time up on our new Coal Tips trail recently, and have been really enjoying the views it gives across the reserve.  However, the work I've been doing this week, lead me to head out along the Riverbank trail from the visitor centre to Charlie's hide and back.  And it was like seeing an old friend again!  So much so I thought I should share with you the sights, sounds and smells along this old…

Hello all,

I think it's certainly time for a long overdue update from me! After spending 4 months at Bempton Cliffs, coming to Fairburn Ings was a big change, but at the same time felt quite familiar. I originally hail from Huddersfield, so moving to Fairburn and getting to see that familiar landscape once again certainly felt like coming home. Moving to a new place is always a test of my navigational skills though,…

We've had some pretty foggy days this week, but as the weather cleared towards the end of the week some really fantastic sightings cropped up. More winter arrivals are being spotted, with whooper swans and golden plover both being spotted around the Flashes.

Whooper swan - Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)

Out on the lagoons, goldeneye, snipe, little egrets, goosanders and great crested grebes are all being spotted…

Yesterday I was lucky enough to see not one, but two nuthatches darting backwards and forwards from the shrubs to the feeders in the Wildlife Garden. I’d never seen a nuthatch before coming to Fairburn Ings, so I still find it very exciting when I see that flash of blue! I highly recommend sitting out on the balcony with a cup of tea for a while and keeping an eye out for them.

Nuthatch - Ray Kennedy (rspb-images…

It’s really lovely to be on a wetland again. After spending the first six months of my warden internship in a woodland it’s great to hear the ducks, geese and waders again. Of which Fairburn Ings seems to have plenty. Something else it has which I’d never seen before was the gorgeous willow tit which Fairburn is very lucky to have on the feeders. Autumn is taking hold and signs can be seen everywhere…

We had a couple of interesting sightings one after the other yesterday. First up was the mythical sounding white buzzard. Yesterday afternoon, up went the cry of "white buzzard!", and so off everyone rushed to the front of the centre. With binoculars at the ready, we stood scanning the trees and sure enough, perched on a tree over the road from the visitor centre was a white (ish) buzzard! As we were trying to decide…

Lets talk ducks! We’re starting to see more winter visitors arriving, with goldeneyes and tufted ducks being seen. Elsewhere on the water, little egrets, great crested grebes and pintails are still being spotted regularly.

Goldeneye - Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)

Tufted duck - Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)

Bearded tits have been the star of the show this week, having been spotted hopping around in the reeds at Big Hole…

There’s something very autumnal about the weather these days, and I’m finding myself digging out my woolly scarf and thermal socks in preparation for the chilly mornings. I’m sensing that the dreaded de-icing of the car in the dark is just around the corner too. Things warm up pretty quickly as the day goes on though, and this weekend has actually been beautifully sunny. With the leaves definitely beginning to change…

I’m sitting in the office trying to concentrate on writing this post, but with the goings on of the birds in the hedge outside the window, it’s proving very tricky. In the last half hour I’ve seen goldfinches, great tits, blue tits, wrens, willow tits and tree sparrows. There’s also a very defensive young robin that I see several times a day, chasing off anything that gets too close, and even had an…

Hello there! I think it’s definitely about time I introduced myself. My name is Laura and I’m the new Visitor Experience Intern at Fairburn Ings. After spending the first 5 months of my internship with the puffins at RSPB Bempton Cliffs, I’ve moved back in land and am going to be here for the final 6 months. I'm originally from Huddersfield, so it really is lovely to be back in this neck of the woods and I’m really looking…

I can’t believe it’s already September... Today is my last day as the visitor intern here at Fairburn Ings! I’ll be moving out of the volunteer house later today ready for my move just down the road to Old Moor for the final 6 months of my internship.

I’ve been involved with loads of different things during my time here; writing the (almost weekly!) recent sightings blogs and manning the reserves social…

Sightings blogs have been a bit thin on the ground recently, apologies for that! We’re back in the swing of things after our Big Wild Sleepout and I’ve got lots to tell you about.

There’ve been lots of different waders to be found at the minute especially over the Flashes.  Look out for green sandpiper, common sandpiper, curlew and dunlin. There’s also been a few black-tailed godwits knocking about,…

“How did you sleep on Saturday night?” I, along with nearly 100 others, slept out on the reserve as part of Big Wild Sleepout at the weekend. Woken by geese honking, and some people, peeking from their tents in the morning, glimpsed roe deer grazing amongst dew soaked grasses.

View of the Pickup campsite on the landscape.  Thanks to Liberty Monkman for the photo

It all kicked off at 12pm on the Saturday…

Everyone at Fairburn Ings is getting super excited which can only mean one thing – it’s nearly Big Wild Sleepout time! I hope everyone’s ready; have you got your tent (do you know how to put it up?) and your torches at the ready? I’ve spent all week asking every friend and family member if they have a tent I can borrow and have ended up with a pop up thing that I’ll be struggling to put down!…

The summer holidays are here, as I’m sure you can tell as the visitor centre is full of the sounds of children playing and the thundering of footsteps from the tree house! That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of wildlife to see though!

It’s not been a bad week for waders; green and common sandpipers have been seen at Pickup, dunlin from Lin Dike and on Main Bay, as well as a few black-tailed godwits…

You might have seen some weasel acrobatics on our Facebook and Twitter feeds in the past couple of days – if you missed it you really should take a look as its some great footage.  The way to tell the difference between a weasel and a stoat (other than the size difference) is that a stoat has a black tipped tail, so we know these guys were weasels not stoats. 

Weasels thanks to Gordon Lane!

Also this week we’ve…

It’s not been long since my last recent sightings blog, thanks to my last post being 3 days late (sorry about that!).  Not a lot has changed bird wise but I’ve plenty of butterflies to tell you about!

Birds up first - on New Flash you can see wood sandpiper, black-tailed godwit and snipe.  A barn owl has also been seen over the flashes.  At Lin Dike there are both adult and juvenile little ringed plovers to…

July is upon us and the reports of a heatwave appear to have been true! It’s been wall to wall sunshine (plus a few thunderstorms) here this week and there have been plenty of things to see.

There’s been loads of activity over at Lin Dike, so I’ll start there.  There’s been wood sandpiper and green sandpiper spotted from the hide; a green sandpiper has also been seen on spoonbill flash and even from…

If you’ve visited us in the past couple of weeks chances are you’ll have been treated to some wonderful views of avocets and their chicks (and you’ll know how excited we all are about it!).  Avocet chicks are completely adorable; tiny little bundles of fuzz with a miniature bill on these little legs!

How cute are they? Photos thanks to Time Jones.

There are three chicks visible from Pickup hide…

Another week has passed and we are fast approaching July which (allegedly) will kick off with a heat wave!  A perfect opportunity to get out, enjoy the warmth and spot some wildlife, and there’s plenty to see at Fairburn Ings!

One of my favourite stories of the past week came from a couple I met down at the feeder screen.  They told me they’d seen a green woodpecker bullying great spotted woodpeckers off the…