It’s been another action packed week for wildlife sightings here at the reserve – birds seen lately include a bittern at the cut, ravens and house martins flying over the reserve, and ringed plovers, dunlins and spotted redshanks over the flashes. My walks home have been pretty exciting bird-wise too, as I’ve been lucky enough for the past few days to see charming groups of long-tailed tits along the riverbank trail.…

Despite the weather being a bit dismal over the weekend, there was still plenty to see around the reserve, including some fantastic scenery thanks to the rain!

Rainbow over Village bay

Despite the fact that there’s a bit of a chill in the air lately, there are still plenty of brilliant insects around the place to spot. On a sunny Saturday morning I was lucky enough to see loads of Speckled Wood butterflies around…

This is my final sightings blog here at Fairburn Ings so I will try and make it a good one, packed full of exciting wildlife! My 6 months here has flown past and it’s time for me to move on to pastures new, I’ll be sad to say goodbye to such as great place, people and of course the wildlife.

Down on Main Bay this week we’ve had pochards, great crested grebes, a black tern and plenty of swans. There have also…

The team have been out listening and looking for breeding birds over the last few months, and now we’re at the end of summer it’s time to gather in the results to see who’s been quietly rearing their families at Fairburn Ings. It’s not an easy task - this year it’s taken a team of thirteen people (and some very early mornings) to scour every inch of Fairburn Ings.

It’s really important that…

We’ve been able to enjoy another nice spell of weather the last couple of days which has meant there were lots of butterflies about basking in the sunshine. Our buddleia outside the visitor centre had heaps of small tortoiseshells on it, along with peacocks, commas, red admirals and the odd painted lady.

The Temminck’s stint was still around on Spoonbill Flash at the beginning of the week amongst a host of other waders…

We had lots of interesting bird sightings yesterday despite the wet weather, with a Temminck’s stint on Spoonbill Flash along with black-tailed godwits, dunlins, ringed plovers and garganeys. A male and a female marsh harrier were seen over the Moat area, whilst green sandpipers and little egrets have been spotted from Pick-up. There’s been a sighting of a black tern on Village Bay and a spotted flycatcher was seen on…

The reserve is still buzzing with insect life at the moment, with bees, butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies enjoying the benefits of a warmer and drier summer. You can see lots off different species of butterfly around the reserve; just outside our visitor centre we have wildflowers and our wildlife garden, where you could spot red admirals, peacocks, small tortoiseshells and brimstones. If you’re on the Lin Dike…

The garganeys continue to be seen on New Flash with up to 7 being seen at once. The garganey is a small, secretive duck so we’re lucky to be getting such great views; the male has a distinct white stripe over the eye. Also in this area, there have been little egrets, black-tailed godwits and greenshanks. Over the road at Spoonbill Flash, there have been snipes, a dunlin and a juvenile little ringed plover.

The…

Pick-up hide has been a busy destination for wildlife again the last few days. There have been a couple of snipe, green sandpipers, common sandpipers, greenshanks, a water rail and a kingfisher dropping by. There have also been buzzards and a marsh harrier spotted, plus a fox.

Down at the Flashes, we’ve had 3 juvenile little ringed plovers, a curlew, several garganeys and a spotted redshank. Whilst from Bob Dickens,…

Some top sightings this week and a couple of exciting storms, giving us the chance to do a bit of storm watching as well as wildlife watching!

We've had a Caspian gull drawing in the birding crowds at Big Hole over the last few days, along with a couple of yellow legged gulls and a Mediterranean gull.

It’s been a wader weekend down at Lin Dike, with redshanks, greenshanks, snipe, dunlins, green sandpipers, black-tailed…

Our youngest volunteer ranger Liberty took this fantastic photo of a wren under the visitor centre yesterday. It’s built a nest under the building by these wires which you can just see in the top left corner, and we’ve seen two chicks peeping out! Wren’s make a domed shape nest out of leaves, grass and moss, and then line it with feathers. The male builds several outer nests, leaving the female to select which one…

We had some extra help on the reserve yesterday – eight enthusiastic volunteers from HSBC came to help us dig ragwort in the wet grasslands, and assist with some repairs at Pickup Hide.

We spend many days at this time of year digging up ragwort, so it was great to have a few additional hands on board to help out. Common Ragwort is a native plant in the UK, but it’s toxic to livestock, including the lovely Highland…

There was plenty about to see this weekend, despite the slightly wetter weather which brought in quite a few damp visitors on Sunday! The wet weather was great for frogs and toads though, bringing lots of baby ones out.

The kingfisher was on good form; two were seen perched at the Screen and one at Pick-up on Saturday, and two were seen down at Lin Dike on Sunday. There were loads of sightings of little egrets at various…

There’s been some great wildlife spotted from Pickup Hide this week.  The pool is quite sheltered and seems to be popular with mallards raising their young.  The water and reedbeds also attracts a wide variety of other bird life.  On Sunday there were 6 snipe plus a green sandpiper, there have been little egrets feeding there regularly, with 3 or 4 seen throughout the week, and 6 there today!  There have also been oystercatchers…

If you’re a regular visitor to our blog or Facebook pages you’ll know we’re all a bit moth-daft at Fairburn Ings! We’ve been popping out our trusty moth trap for many years; we all just love pouring over the box in the morning (like in the photo below!) to see what beautiful, fluttery critters we’ve captured. So there was much excitement in the office last week when our new moth trap arrived. There…

The little egrets continue to be seen at Pick-up hide, along with up to five herons, pochards, a green sandpiper and a juvenile little ringed plover. Up at Big Hole, there has been a little grebe with chicks and a yellow-legged gull.

On Main Bay, there are lots of noisy lapwings swooping about as well as oystercatchers and common terns. I sat watching a male great crested grebe catch fish for its 3 chicks the other day…

A quick sighting update from the reserve, there's just too much wildlife around at the moment to mention it all!

It has been buzzing with insects recently with plenty of butterflies, damselflies and dragonflies about. Just to pick a few, we’ve had a reported sighting of a red admiral on the wildflowers outside the visitor centre, emerald damselflies, ruddy darters and a brown hawker.

There has been lots of…

There’s been an explosion of baby frogs and toads in the last two days as they’ve started to emerge from the pond and embark on the next stage of their life cycle. At this stage they are often referred to as froglets and toadlets, and have now changed from their tadpole form into tiny versions of adult frogs and toads. Once you notice one of them, you’ll suddenly see loads crawling about and making the dangerous journey…

The star species of the last few days would have to be the black-tailed godwits which have been seen since Thursday at Lin Dike. There has been quite a bit of other wader action, including a green sandpiper at Pick-up hide, several redshanks at Lin Dike, oystercatchers on Main Bay and little ringed plovers at Big Hole.

A bittern was seen at Pick-up which is the first sighting for a few weeks so it was good to hear. Also…

We’ve had a lovely juvenile great spotted woodpecker on the peanut feeder in our wildlife garden today which everyone was pleased to see. Other visitors to the feeders include a nuthatch, goldfinches, greenfinches and loads of young tree sparrows.

Down at Pick-up hide there have been sightings of a jay, a grey wagtail, a roe deer and sand martins using the sand martin bank which is great news!

On Main Bay we’ve…

Our sightings book has been filled with loads of fantastic wildlife including birds, insects and flowers. We’ve also got plenty of young wildlife about at the moment and it’s lovely to see, there are little chicks following their parent on the water and fledglings taking their first clumsy flights.

We’ve got loads of coots around with cute chicks, which start off with little red heads. We’ve also got great…

We’ve had quite a few cuckoo sightings over the last couple of days; one has been seen near Bob Dickens hide, Pick-up hide, along the riverside and at the feeder screen on the Discovery Trail. I’ve still not managed to see one yet so I’ll have to try a bit harder! Cuckoo's are well known for laying their eggs in other birds' nests which is called parasitising. The most common birds' nests they use in the UK include reed…

We were treated to some lovely weather again this bank holiday weekend, and we were particularly thankful as our new sister site RSPB St Aidan’s opened on Saturday! The wildlife must have been enjoying the sunshine too and there was plenty about for visitors to see.

This year’s BBC Springwatch has kicked off and we’ve had some lovely spring moments on the reserve too. Beki spotted a robin fledgling in the car park…

If you’ve never been to Fairburn Ings nature reserve before, you really should come take a look. There’s heaps of wildlife to see and loads of fun stuff to get involved with. We’ve got pond dipping and quiz trails for kids, and you can keep up to date with all our events at our website, www.rspb.org.uk/fairburnings.I've been here for over 2 months now and absolutely love the place!

Just outside…

Its turning out to be a slightly unusual Spring, its not that long ago that we were clearing snow from the car park and footpaths, last weekend we had beautiful, hot, sunny weather, and this week we've had much cooler temperatures and plenty of rain.  Needless to say the wildlife seems to be coping with whatever the weather can throw at them with plenty of sightings over the last few days.

The kingfisher has been seen…