The brilliant winter sunshine has been enjoyed by many visitors, and our birds.  Our visitors today, including a coach-load from the Hitchin and Letchworth RSPB Local Group, found 76 different species, with the 77th not far away.  Each visitor would have had their favourite - perhaps it was seeing a bittern, or the three marsh harriers flying together, or the male bullfinches glowing in the winter sunshine.  For others,…

We were lucky with yesterday's guided walk - after three stormy days there was just a gently breeze and sunshine.  We found many of our ducks at the western end of Elney Lake, where most of them were sleeping on the calm water  in glorious sunshine.  The drakes' breeding colours were stunning, particularly the shovelers, pochards and wigeons.  Eventually, we spotted the metallic dark green heads of some drake mallards…

Our monthly Wednesday Wander set off from the car park this morning with a few redwings in the hedge ahead of us.  It was noticeable how few berries were left on this stretch of hawthorn - it had been laden just over a month ago, before the winter thrushes arrived.

Our first challenge was to show people some goldeneyes from one of the viewpoints.  Eventually, everyone saw some - there were just three in that area, but…

The flocks of starlings that have been roosting here at Fen Drayton Lakes have now moved on, leaving just a relatively small flock of local, hardy residents.

Although these birds try, there just aren't enough of them to give the fantastic displays we were seeing when there were over 1000 starlings each evening.  Where have the others gone?  We don't know exactly, but they will have continued their migration southwards…

 For most of Sunday, we weren't sure if we'd see any starlings, because of fog.  In fact, it was so dense that for much of the day we couldn't even see the nearest edge of Holywell Lake.  As the starlings usually roost on the far side, prospects didn't look promising, but right at the end of the afternoon, visibility improved just enough to see the entire reedbed.

Sadly, a similar number of starlings came…

We've come to expect the roosting starlings to frequently do something different here at Fen Drayton Lakes.  Saturday night was no exception.

Perhaps "our" starlings had seen Autumn Watch on TV on Friday - did you see the fantastic starling display in Ireland?   Whatever the reason, Saturday's display was downright disappointing, with only about 400 birds in the display.  At least they made the effort, 

Saturday night's roost was so good that some of the watchers came back for more tonight!  One of the returning families had seen a short-eared owl as they left after Saturday's roost.

The performance was another good one, although there were just 2000-2500 birds here tonight.  Where were the other 4000 or so?

Not everyone was keeping their eyes on the starlings - a few spotted a bittern making a short flight below…

Once again, many people came to watch the starling roost at the end of this afternoon, including a number of RSPB colleagues from other locations.  Some of the visitors come to watch the show frequently, and others were hoping to see the spectacle in real-time for the first time.. 

I'm glad to report that the starlings were back on form, which was great for the lady who was celebrating her birthday (and a relief for me…

We saw a rough-legged buzzard flying to the north of the Holywell Lake car park this morning - the 141st bird recorded from the car park in just over 3 years, and just 4 days after hen harrier was added as the 140th.

A short time later, we heard that the rough-legged buzzard that has been in the Hanson-RSPB Wetland Project area for the past couple of weeks, was still there, and being watched at the time we saw one here…

A ring-tailed hen harrier and common buzzard have been seen this afternoon, having a tussle above our neighbour's fields alongside the entrance road.

Immature or female marsh and hen harriers have been seen at Fen Drayton Lakes this morning (at least one of each),  Also, bitterns have been seen and Cetti's warblers have been heard.

After a couple of below-par performances, the starlings gave a much better performance tonight.

The estimated numbers had dropped back a bit from the beginning of the week, and the flying displays had been relatively short, with the flock dropping into the chosen roost site before early.  Late arrivals flew straight in to the roost, like arrows, which was quite impressive.

Tonight, starlings began arriving at 4.25pm…

The weather has been gloomy today, but my walk to work was brightened by two splashes of yellow.  Firstly, the leaves of the field maples, which turn to a lovely buttery yellow, and secondly, some siskins, which were mixed up with goldfinches.

I bumped into Dennis, one of our great team of volunteers.  His morning had been brightened by three views of a bittern at Holywell Lake.

Will the starlings give a sparkling end…

The Fen Drayton Lakes starling roost has continued to impress visitors this week, and Saturday night was one of the best yet.  Word has got around – the car park was overflowing with admiring visitors, some were regulars, some were full of anticipation for a spectacle they’d never previously witnessed.

The pattern started off just like any other night, with the first few groups to arrive all being quite small…

I estimated 2500-3000 starlings roosted here last night, and I was hoping for a similar number this afternoon.  Members of the Friends of Holt Island group came for an afternoon guided walk, and were planning to stay for the starlings, so my fingers had been crossed for another fine end to the day.  I wasn't the only one - some people who watched last night had come back for another viewing.

The sky was partly cloudy…

Mike Toms of the BTO gave a great presentation about gardens and birds at the Cambridgeshire Bird Club last night (14 October), but during the interval, much of the chatter was about all the migrating birds arriving on the East Anglian coast in the previous couple of days.

Short-eared owls, great grey shrikes, and even a rufous-tailed robin had turned up.  Plans were being made.  I was sitting next to Pam, one of our volunteers…

With a temperature drop of 18 Centigrade in the past week, and a north-westerly wind to chill to the bone, today certainly felt wintry.  Just to add to the atmosphere, several parties of redwings flew over us this morning.  Our hawthorn hedges are laden with berries, but the redwings ignored them - why?  What do they know?

The good luck that was with me last weekend did hold, as I saw four cranes at the RSPB Ouse Washes than another six at WWT Welney.  They're now all at Lakenheath, so when I go past there on the train to Norwich this week, I'll make sure I've got a window seat.

October has started off with record-breaking temperatures in our area, and the wildlife records have been hot too.  The weekend highlight for some of…

The wildlife-watching experiences here have been superb in recent days, starting with a bat-detecting evening with a local Guides pack last Thursday.  They saw the common pipistrelles that the hand-held detectors detected, but the Daubenton’s bat eluded most pairs of eyes, only the detectors giving them away.

Our starling roost is building nicely, and the flock “performed” brilliantly for the guides (and again the…

Visitors to Fen Drayton Lakes, particularly the bird watchers, can be forgiven if they think Christmas has come early this year.

Why will be bird watchers be happy?  Well, our first bird-watching hide is open for visitors to use. 

Why Christmas?  Well, the hide is a gift from Network Rail to the retiring chief executive, and he most kindly asked for a hide at an RSPB nature reserve (he is a member) rather than something…

Over the summer months we’ve run a series of seven expeditions in search of Fen Drayton Lakes’ top predatory land bugs.  No long-haul flights to steamy tropical jungles, no film crews and no big budgets for us, but we still found far too many to include all of them in our final list of a dozen deadly bugs.  TV presenter Steve Backshall would have a field day here!

Some of the predators were found every time…

This morning, Gilleards have begun building a birdwatching hide for us at Moore Lake.  They expect to have their work completed by the end of Tuesday 30 August, but will not be working over the bank holiday weekend.  More work will then have to be done before we can open it for visitors' use.  Our work will involve fencing and screening the approach, so that sheep don't escape and birds don't see the visitors coming and…

We ran the fourth in our series of Deadly Dozen bug hunts on Friday, and as usual, the children found some amazing small animals. 

To begin with, predators were a bit hard to find, but eventually we reached 15.  We then had a vote, to remove three from the list to leave our deadly dozen of the day.

The wolf spiders were popular, as were the ichneumon wasp and green lacewing, but on this occasion it was the vegetarians…

The Cambridgeshire Guided Buses began running today, carrying fare-paying passengers (and those with passes for free bus travel) through RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes.  Some buses had standing-room only, filled with people wanting to be part of this locally historical day. 

(photo by Steve Dobromylski)

I wonder how many of the passengers were getting their first views of Fen Drayton Lakes.  How many will get off the bus at…

The school holidays have been going for a week now and we (a team of volunteers and I) are having a great time with lake dipping and bug hunting.  Fortunately, the families who join us, are enjoying the events as much as us.

There were some beautifully-marked insects on today's Deadly Dozen Bug Hunt, although not all of them were predatory (and therefore didn't qualify for the deadly dozen listing) - three different hoverfly…