...and the inspiration for this week’s reflections from Frampton Marsh comes from Roly Lloyd from Adelaide, South Australia. Roly visited us this week with his brother who resides in the UK, and who is a member of the RSPB, so I thought I’d give it a go to get Roly enlisted too. I was delighted to find that Roly is already a member so thank you Roly for your support from the other side of the globe and also for getting me thinking about global travel.
If and when I have the time (and money!), I can sometimes be found about 40 metres under the Red Sea. When I have been diving in Egypt in spring, I’ve witnessed the veritable floods of migrant birds dropping into hotel gardens around the dive resorts after flying hundreds of miles with only sea on one side and desert on the other. On one occasion, just looking from the veranda of my room was a mouth-watering collection of pipits and yellow wagtails with umpteen different coloured heads (sound familiar?!) with a squacco heron on the lawn, a woodchat shrike, and a semi-collared flycatcher perched up on the sprinkler tap. Pretty much anything can turn up at the right time of year.
Exactly the same thing is happening here on the Lincolnshire coast as birds feed up before departure or stop off to refuel during their journeys northwards. Our whooper swan herd departed some weeks ago for Iceland and it won’t be long before the brent geese leave us too. Dark-bellied brents are the most northerly breeding geese in the world and having spent the winter around our coast, they fly thousands of miles to Siberia, hundreds of miles within the Arctic Circle, to nest and raise their goslings. Goldeneyes are now notable by their absence and will soon be prospecting for tree-holes in which to nest in northern Europe and Scandinavia, and the wigeons and pintails that have been with us during the winter will also be winging their way up to breed in Scandinavia, Iceland and Russia. Other wildfowl are coming into the UK from further south and we have had two splendid drake garganeys on the wet grassland, visible from the lower car park this week. At times they have been obligingly close to the road.
Raptors are on the move and our beautiful and ghostly hen harriers and dashing merlins have gone - hopefully to find safe places on the upland moors of Britain and Europe to raise their offspring. On 27th April, I was lucky enough to see an osprey over the reserve. It came down briefly to hover over the open water near the reedbed but moved on northwards, pursued by two buzzards. Given the late date, this may well have been a Scandinavian bird.
Many of our waders are also feeding up before they move on and most are now looking stunning in all the finery of their summer plumage. Hundreds of birds from the reserve will soon be flying up to their breeding grounds in northern Europe and Iceland. I can’t describe how attractive they are so why not have a sneaky preview at these beauties using a book or the internet and then come and see them for yourself? Take a peek at summer-plumaged black-tailed godwit, ruff, dunlin, spotted redshank for example.
Reserves such as RSPB Frampton Marsh are essential refuelling posts on birds’ migratory highways. Come and enjoy the spectacle, do your own refuelling in our café, and then you can go on your way...although perhaps not as far as Adelaide!
Murray Brown
Visitor Experience Intern
Photo by Neil Smith