Howdy folks, and welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the visitor guy!
I know a fair few of you all went to Bird Fair last weekend, thanks to everyone who came and said hello. I also know some of you came to Frampton instead because there were some good birds seen. Time to go look at some maps...
Well, you have to admit, that is just a few birds!
Yes, same again! Interesting that the turtle doves have moved a bit further south than their usual spot. May be useful info for those people trying to find them as year ticks.
You know, some people say August is a quiet month on nature reserves. I think we can put that myth to rest! Spotted crake was a marvelous spot. Unfortunately it didn't hang around
The field voles were coming out underneath the centre feeders to pick up fallen seed. Very quick though, blink and you missed them!
As mentioned last time, we were having some great tides this week. The phalarope was in for one of them, but unfortunately departed soon after. A great find by Ian, who posted a short video on Twitter.
So that's the maps, what nice photos do we have for you this week? Well, apart from last week you might have been irked at the recent lack of photos. In fact you might even be a bit crabby...
Or even a bit waspish...
Thanks to Jeremy Eyeons for those!
Staying on the smaller scale, @scoobyblade69 on Twitter captured this slightly battle-worn speckled wood.
Moving onto the birds, he also photographed a nice young pied wagtail, and a black-tailed godwit.
Black-tailed gowdits were also the focus of Howard Birley, over on our Flickr page
Meanwhile 'PDC3000' had found a very obliging kestrel. Both perched up...
And also on the ground, presumably after an attempt to catch a mouse or vole.
Oliver Woodman on twitter has a great series of shots, including a flight of little egrets
A mixed trio of waders
And a common sandpiper who appears to not like the taste of something. Or is it having a cough?
He also got some great shots of the pectoral sandpiper, which has been giving some very good views.
You can clearly see there the sharp line across the breast, coming to a point, which gives the bird its name.
Jeremy Eyeons also caught the pectoral sandpiper, flexing its pecs
And this pair of snipe. Snipe have been very noticeable around the reserve over the last week or so.
And well, it wouldn't be a photo frenzy without some Neil Smith shots....
Yes, the sun always shines on Frampton Marsh, even when things are dark elsewhere (Editor's note: this may not be actually true...)
And we are starting to see our sea aster mining bees. Pretty rare in the UK. Here they are living up to the mining part of their name...
We will see more of these over the coming weeks as the sea aster starts to bloom.
So, there you have it. If you are coming to visit us, you can keep up to day 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.
I hope you all have a great week, take care, have fun, and I will catch you next time.
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.