Good afternoon. If you're not going to the Birdfair this weekend but fancy something of a birdfest instead, then here's last weeks sightings to whet your whistle for what you can expect to see at the Lincolnshire Wash Reserves this weekend.
Not suprisingly to our regular readers and visitors, waders are topping the bill with a wonderful range of species and some incredible numbers.
Off the back of the very succesful and fully booked Big Wild Sleep Out at Frampton we had an incredible start to Sunday morning with over 4,000 black-tailed godwit present on the scrapes! Keen eyed visitors have been able to read up to 30 colour ringed individuals. In the past birds seen at Frampton have also been recorded in Iceland and Portugal so if you're interested I'll post up some of the more interesting results in another blog post. While numbers haven't quite reached that peak during the week, we have still seen numbers consistently above 1,000 with the occasional knot, bar-tailed godwit, curlew, and whimbrel revealing themselves to those patient enough to sift through them.
While the godwits may dominate in the numbers game there is still plenty of other interest out there. Peak counts this week include 17 avocet, 7 little ringed plover, 130 ringed plover, 16 golden plover, single grey plover, a very elusive and mobile little stint that pops up pretty much wherever you aren't, 1 curlew sandpiper with hopefully more to come, small groups of dreeping dunlin wheeling about over the scrapes and reedbeds totalling over 100, ruff have been great to see in all shapes and sizes with a mixture of young and old, males and females contributing to the varied mix of 50 birds, snipe have been more visible especially on South Scrape as they feed in amongst the vegetated fringes, the distinct chewit of spotted redshank is often the best way to find this elegant wader as it moves around the reserve and likewise the chew-chew-chew of greenshank is the biggest clue they're around, comfortably outnumbering the spotted redshank 12-1. 7 green sandpiper, 3 wood sandpiper (2 at Freiston) and 2 common sandpiper (6 at Freiston) complete the waders for this week.
Green Sandpiper - Neil Smith
Ruff (juvenile) - Neil Smith
Another good week for raptors has seen marsh harrier, hobby, merlin, and peregrine on the hunt. Good numbers of swallows, sand martins, finches and waders being the big draw for three falcons. Always an incredible sight to see them in full pursuit, though while we may see more of the merlin and peregrine, the hobby will follow the martins and swallows south for the winter, though we may be lucky and have one lingering into September.
For those with a little patience to sift through the ducks, a juvenile and female garganey were the reward, hiding themselves amongst the very similarly plumaged teal. A lone little gull was seen over the reedbed where loads of this years yellow wagtail youngsters have been chasing and feeding.
Over the next few weeks we will be letting the water levels drop further to increase the feeding area for waders and we will be hoping to dry out north and middle scrapes completely. To find out why, pop in and see us or tune in next week.
The more you're out the more you see - https://twitter.com/BoyWonderBirder