rare birds for Fen Drayton Lakes

A party of seven white-fronted geese has settled at Fen Drayton Lakes, and can usually be found in the grassland area between Ferry Lagoon and the River Great Ouse. They're not always seen - you may need to search around for them. Their favoured area is uneven ground, so sometimes they just disappear into a dip. This species isn't often recorded here - and it is usually just for a few hours. Perhaps these grazing birds had intended to spend the winter on the other side of the North Sea, but popped over during the very cold weather recently, and found that the lack of snow cover here was just to their liking. Some lucky visitors have seen woodcocks and bitterns recently, but don't expect to see spectacular starling roosts until the autumn - the thousands that were here in late 2010 have migrated to milder areas. Who knows - they might have seen Julia Bradbury filming for Countryfile in the Somerset Levels recently! Some Cetti's warblerss have been singing on warm days recently, and goldeneyes have been displaying quite energetically, but we'll have to see if the returning wintry weather cools their ardour.