Firstly a quick reiteration of John's blog post from last night. Please don't visit either Frampton or Freiston till at least lunchtime tomorrow. This is pretty much the message for most East Coast reserves as there are still warnings in place from the Environment Agency. Best way to get updates on the Lincolnshire coastal reserves is keep checking our Twitter account as site mangers and wardens will post news as and when they have some. There are still two more high tides to come, tonight and tomorrow, and while I would usually implore you to come and see the wader roosts at either Frampton or Freiston I'm afraid you'll have to wait a couple of weeks for the next high tides.
So, onto the birds. It's been a little quieter this week, mainly because we've had some pretty hefty machinery on the reserve as we look to improve our wet grassland and make it more diverse and offer options for both birds and visitors. With the increasing numbers of birds settling with us for the winter it will be no surprise to read that our raptor sightings are coming thick and fast. While much of the recent sightings are made up of reports kindly passed on to the Visitor Centre and myself, I was lucky enough to personally enjoy an extremely robust peregrine out battling the winds on the morning of the 5th. In about an hour it made six passes across the grassland and scrapes, really showing off it's aerial, but not hunting, prowess as it carved through the westerly blusters and accelerated hard as it pursued both teal and wigeon. Just the most magnificent thing to watch. Keeping the peregrine's company this week were were daily records of merlin and marsh harrier, the latter peaking at three on the 3rd along with 2 ring-tail hen harrier. The ring tails were not seen on the 4th but 2 males were, one out on the salt marsh and one on the wet grassland.
The most interesting bird of the week was the 'black brant' below. The strong and complete collar is a good indication for a brant but the grey, rather than tobacco/brown, mantle means the identification leans towards it being a hybrid. For more information on hybrids have a look here and for further musings on the brent/brant complex have a look here.
'Black brant' - Paul Sullivan
With over 2,500 brent geese currently present at Frampton there'll be plenty of opportunities to study the various forms and varieties and hopefully a few more 'brant' types will be found and we can discuss them here.
Apologies for this being such a brief report, my computer lovingly signed me out without my knowledge and when I went to submit the original sightings, I was directed to a log in screen. Not what I wanted after 2 hours :( Will try and fill it out on Monday.
Enjoy your weekend.
The more you're out the more you see - https://twitter.com/BoyWonderBirder