Howdy folks, and welcome back to the Frampton Marsh sightings blog. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy.
Yes, a bit early this week. I'm off to Wales shortly for the weekend, and so won't have a chance to do the blog at the usual time. Therefore I'm putting this out on Friday morning, so you have some idea of what is about if you visit this weekend. Remember, the Twitter feed is up-to-date, and you don't need a Twitter account to be able to see it. Just go to https://twitter.com/RSPBNorfolkLinc for all the latest news from us, and our sister reserves in Norfolk.
Right, that said, onto the maps...
Quite a varied selection there, with the Easternmost corner of the reserve, under the seabank, being a favoured roosting ground for quite a number of waders. Turtle doves are being seen and heard, but only sporadically. Alas the rubbish spring seems to have taken a toll on numbers. Little tern is a good sighting for the reserve, normally they aree more likely to be found over the river mouth.
I had been saying all weekend that it felt like black tern weather, and eventually I was proven right, as a couple turned up. The spoonbill dropped in, but alas did not stay for long. Good to see the butterflies emerging (or in the case of the painted ladies, arriving). And always nice to see the BBMF fly over, in this case one of the Hurricanes.
Monday on the other hand was rather quiet...
Rather better on the Tuesday, and it seems our bee orchids are back out and blooming! The spoonbill and garganeys have apparently been at Freiston for a while.
The big excitement on Wednesday was actually just off reserve, on one of the South Lincs RSPB group's boat trips (well worth it, book now via the South Holland Centre!). A splendid male red-backed shrike gave wonderful views as the boat cruised past. The area is accessible along the MacMillan Way footpath, so others later went to find it on foot. Anthony our assistant warden got this digiscoped shot:
What a cracker!
Alas, no map for Thursday. But I do know that a green sandpiper was on the grassland opposite the visitor centre. Two spotted redshanks dropped into the grassland North of the road, and there were two little gulls there also.
Right, nice photo time. Lets start with this pair of grebes by Macca.
Paul Sullivan got this four-spotted chaser...
And Jeremy Eyeons managed to capture this male gadwall coming in to land.
Right then, lets see who reads this all the way through, and who might be up for a challenge. This is a blue tailed damselfly...
as is this...
and this
and indeed this...
Blue-tailed damselflies have four colour morphs. Blue, green, red and purple. The colour being on the body. Can anyone out there get 4 sharp in focus photos, one of each form? The above photos were taken by Toby our warden, using his phone, all within a couple of meters of the visitor centre, so it is eminently doable!
So there we are. 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.
Finally, if you would like to give us an extra bit of support you can text to donate money to the reserve. Please text FRAM26 followed by £2, £5 or £10 (eg FRAM26£5) to 70070.
So, that is pretty much everything. I hope you all have a great week, stay safe, and I will catch you all next time!
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.