Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the visitor guy.
I'm afraid the wild weather at the end of the week meant there weren't that many sightings to be had. I'm sure there is lots out there, just not many people looking and everything hunkering down in cover. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let's look at the maps from the start of the week.
There was a huge fieldfare movement on the Saturday. Some estimates were of a thousand birds on or around the reserve. Nice to see some sightings from Freiston Shore too.
Yes, the dowitcher is still with us, for over 100 days now! The cape shelduck will be an escapee, but interesting to see. It was hanging out with the Canada goose flock. A short-tailed field vole was a nice spot, under the centre feeders. Distinguished by its much shorter tail and richer brown fur from a bank vole (which we also sometimes get).
Pintails are regular on the reserve over the winter, but 150 of them is a very good count
Short-eared owl sightings are always nice.
No map for Wednesday I'm afraid, the manky weather meant there really wasn't much spotted.
No map either for Thursday, though I do know the long-billed dowitcher was seen on the fields to the North of the sea bank car park. A yellowhammer was under the centre feeders. A bit early, they don't usually show up there until after Christmas.
And Friday didn't have many sightings either. Again, the weather put paid to that.
But hey, the weekend looks bright and breezy. And the start of next week looks pretty good. So don't let that deter you from visiting.
Right, so about this sort of time we look to see what nice photos we have. Of course the bad weather will have had an impact there too. But I don't think you can complain much about this fantastic marsh harrier, taken by Oliver Woodman.
Likewise with this reflected drake wigeon, by Jeremy Eyeons
And Ian Ellis got a video of the Cape shelduck
If you are coming to visit us, you can keep up to date with the sightings by following our Twitter account. No need to have an account yourself, we make it so everyone can see it. If you do tweet yourself, please remember to use #RSPBframpton so we can see what you are posting, and also ideally mention @RSPBNorfolkLinc. If you have any good photos (or video, or even artwork) we'd love to see that too. Tweet it, or share it on our Facebook page or our Flickr account. It may also be useful for you to know the weather and tide times for the site, which may well have an impact on what is showing. Oh, and remember we do now sell filled rolls in the visitor centre for all your lunchtime needs. Also now, the tide tables for next year are in. Just £1 and you can plan your birdwatching trips to Frampton, Freiston, Titchwell and Snettisham for the entirety of 2019! Finally, if the weather turns out to be colder than you'd planned on, you can buy hats, scarves and gloves, lovingly knitted by our lovely volunteers, from the visitor centre.
All the best, take care, and I will catch you next time!
Chris