With all this mild weather at Fairburn, our sightings book has been filling up nicely this past week! I have been lucky enough to attend a course in Edinburgh this week where the sounds of woodpeckers tapping on wood were heard everywhere throughout the enchanting oak woodlands next to our wee Scottish house. I was very happy to return to Fairburn to find yet more of this distinctive tapping on wood. I often wondered…

Our new intern, Heather, has written the recent sightings blog.  Enjoy

I think it is safe to say Spring is definitely in full flow here at Fairburn Ings! We’ve had some (largely) sunny weather bringing classic lesser celandines flowering on the reserve. These simple buttercup-like wild flowers with their waxy yellow petals are some of the first to emerge in Spring, preferring damper, shadier patches so are easily spotted…

Hello all! I am Heather the new Visitor and Promotions Intern for Fairburn Ings, seeing as though I will be with you for the next 6 months I thought I’d better introduce myself.  I am from a dairy farm in Mid-Wales so have always had a passion for getting outside and enjoying the countryside. Moving ‘Upppt north’ is wonderful as it means I get to enjoy so many new and exciting habitats such as the extensive wetlands…

Well spring has definitely sprung here at Fairburn in the last couple of weeks. The Skylarks are whizzing up high and singing their hearts out mid-flutter, queen bees have woken up from their winter slumber and are buzzing about, and the little white flowers have sprouted from the Blackthorn in the hedgerows.

Bumblebee on Teasel - Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)

So, with things all starting to kick off, we will be surveying…

It's that magical time of year again as spring arrives at Fairburn Ings. The past week has seen a number of signs that warmer days are on the way. The first Celendines (a small yellow woodland flower) are in bloom. We have had our first sightings of queen Bumblebees and Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell Butterflies and a Chiffchaff burst into song down Cut Lane. Many birds have started nest building and all of the new camera…

I’m starting today’s sightings blog on a little bit of a sad note, as it’s my last day here at Fairburn. So I’d just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who reads the blog, as well as to the entire Fairburn team for making my stay here so brilliant – I’ve loved every moment.

I was lucky enough this morning to see our new live nest box camera feed switched on in the visitor…

We had loads of great sightings last week over half term, along with some much-needed sunshine!  The feeders around the visitor centre are seeing plenty of action as ever, with relatively rarely-seen birds such as lesser redpolls, willow tits and siskins dropping by for a spot of lunch, along with our ever-present tits, finches and tree sparrows. 

Lesser redpolls are easiest to see in winter after the trees have lost their…

We've started monitoring for booming Bitterns this week ahead of the coming breeding season, and lo and behold, we've had some fantastic sightings!  These highly secretive and shy birds are notoriously difficult to spot, but visitors have been getting great views of one from the roadside on Phalarope pool - we've even got a great photo to share which was taken by one of our wonderful visitors just yesterday!…

Even though it’s only Wednesday, we’ve had plenty of great sightings already this week.  All of our fantastic wildfowl are in fine form ready for the breeding season, and several have been noticed in pairs just this morning, including shovelers, teals and shelducks.  This really is the best time of year to appreciate the rainbow of colours on display from those marvellous drakes, and just yesterday our volunteer…

Our warden team are busy throughout the year, but at this time of year they are particularly busy making sure the reserve is ready for spring, when most of the wildlife here will be using Fairburn Ings to raise their new families.  Lots of animals breed on the site, so there’ll be a lot of new families that will call Fairburn Ings home. 

The team have been planting hedgerow plants like hawthorn and blackthorn, which…

Lizzie normally does our recent sightings blog and what a good job she does, her attention to detail really brings the Fairburn blog to life, today Julie has written the sightings blog.

So I’ve been looking through our recent sightings book and can’t help but notice the number of raptors listed, Thursday 6 Feb a peregrine was seen over the visitor centre, a buzzard at Pick up hide, a sparrowhawk over the car…

It may seem that Spring is a long way off for the moment (we’re crossing our fingers against a repeat of last year’s March blizzards!), but there have been signs of new life springing up (sorry, couldn’t resist) all over the reserve the past couple of weeks.

Probably the most noticeable difference is the joyous sound of birdsong in the air! Walking through the woods along the riverbank trail lately…

Given that it’s such a beautiful sunny morning here at Fairburn Ings, I thought I may as well kick off today’s sightings blog with a bird I’ve just seen in the wildlife garden – the lovely nuthatch! Nuthatches are regular visitors to our wildlife garden feeders nowadays, but this hasn’t always been the case – the first sighting of a nuthatch here on the reserve was as recent as September 2012, and we know they bred in…

Here's a blog from our fantastic wildlife garden volunteers... enjoy

Firstly Happy New Year to you all, and welcome to our first blog of 2014.

Lets begin by saying what unusual weather we have been having, so much so it seems to be fooling some species into thinking its Spring already. You may notice birds singing and early budding on our plants. Early for this time of year!

Now is a great time to ensure nextboxes…

The reserve team had a fantastic surprise last week whilst clearing out the nest boxes around the reserve ready for the next breeding season – two tiny wood mice nestled at the bottom of one of the boxes! They had obviously made a cosy little bolt hole for themselves in amongst the hawthorn leaves, and were taking shelter from the cold using the wooden box as insulation.

Wood mice in a nest box! Image by Chris…

I’m happy to report that after a few weeks of not seeing many wildfowl around the reserve, they seem to be back with a vengeance!! Large flocks of wigeon have been spotted on the flashes from Lin Dyke hide and the Lin Dyke link trail – wigeon are definitely one of my favourites because the males have such beautiful colours. The soft colours of their buff peachy chests, grey wings and white rump patch contrast perfectly…

I couldn’t resist taking advantage of the widespread frost this Monday morning to walk into work through the reserve from Fairburn village and spot some amazing wildlife in the cold. And I’m very glad I did!

At eight o’clock Monday morning everything was cloaked in a thick layer of sparkling frost. The sky was bathed in muted pastel colours of pink and purple, and the moon was reflected off the surface…

It’s been a rather busy week here at Fairburn Ings, so there are lots of lovely wildlife sightings to catch you up on! Possibly the star of the week is the Marsh Harrier which has been seen daily from Pickup hide since Sunday. Although these beautiful birds are seen with reasonable regularity, daily sightings are certainly worth comment!

Marsh Harriers are the largest of the Harriers, and can be recognised even…

It’s about time we had a sightings blog from lovely St. Aidan’s – before you ask, we’re still not back on site (groan!), but we’re hopeful that the new year will bring developments. The site itself is still open, with public rights of way and bridleways covering the majority of the paths, so there are still plenty visitors there to spot wildlife – it’s also a favourite haunt of several Fairburn staff too, given that it…

We’ve had a brilliant start to the New Year sightings-wise, with plenty of visitors in over the holidays to keep us up to date with the wildlife around the reserve.

On Saturday an enormous skein of around 350 pink-footed geese passed over the reserve. These geese don’t breed in the UK, but spend their winters here in large numbers, mainly in coastal areas in England and Scotland. Their breeding grounds for the…

You may be hearing more and more about a little thing called the Big Garden Birdwatch over the coming weeks...ok, maybe it’s not so little. It is in fact the world’s biggest wildlife survey, and we had nearly 600,000 people take part across the nation in last year’s Birdwatch, which is absolutely fantastic!

If you haven’t taken part before (this will be my first year!), then here’s how it works...…

A year ago I was coming to the end of my days at university, still wondering what I wanted to do with my life and feeling pretty directionless, to be honest. By chance I stumbled across the RSPB's advert for residential internships - it sounded like a fantastic way to have some adventure, develop my skills, and hopefully pursue a future career in conservation. The prospect of volunteering for an entire year was a little…

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…

We might have been taking it easy over this festive period, but our wildlife certainly hasn’t. The sightings book has been as full as ever over the past few days, so here’s the festive sightings blog.

Last Sunday there was a weasel spotted on the boardwalk near the visitor centre!   These tiny little carnivores are on average only about the length of a 15cm ruler, but despite their small size they are very…