Apologies for the delayed posting of the sightings between the 6th and 12th, I've been busying myself out on the scrapes as we seek to improve the habitat, both for birds and visitors and it's all going pretty well. We installed a sluice in North Scrape to allow us to empty it entirely and despite the fog and conditions, we did pretty, pretty well.... We don't win the Golden Welly by luck you know.
The minimum standard required for installing sluices at Frampton - Toby Collett
We have shipped the dumper and digger back to their Christmas yard and we'll welcome them back in the New Year, so for the next two weeks the reserve will be for you and the birds only, and what a lot of birds there are!
And so to a bumper two week sightings round up. The foggy few days we had gave us the chance to put our audio birding skills to the test and we did pretty well on the 11th with flyover lapland bunting and spotted redshank both picked up on call. Another call has become very familiar over the last two weeks and that is the light twittering of the flock of 9 snow buntings that have been present daily, being very vocal as they move around the reserve. One bird which we wish had been vocal was the glossy ibis reported on the 17th. This silently drifted over the reserve with only one lucky observer picking it up. Hopefully when the work has been completed on the scrapes and wet grassland we will provide some excellent habitat and encourage more birds passing over to pay us a visit.
We've been doing pretty well for geese both in variety and numbers. Huge, thousand strong grazing groups have been nibbling away on the wet grassland. Consistently the majority have been made up of 280 canada geese with a handful of greylag geese mixed in. Numbers can be swelled by the influx of over a thousand brent geese from the salt marsh and we've enjoyed having over 200 pink-footed geese pop over to wash and snooze on the grassland when they're not munching the crops to the south. The standout bird, quite literally, is the single barnacle goose that mixes in, doing his best 'Where's Wally?' impression. Our group of whooper swans now numbers 38 with the regular 20 being joined by a group of 18 that turned up on the scrapes on the evening of the 18th. The best place to see these, and the pink-footed geese, is in the field to the south of the cross bank.
Barnacle goose - Ian Ellis
It seems like our wigeon numbers are now pretty stable and we have about two thousand (minus a few thanks to a pretty skilled peregrine) spread across the reserve, with some being remarkably approachable considering their usually flighty nature. The reedbed hide seems to be the best place for duck variety with good numbers of diving duck enjoying the deeper water here, the best being 2 female scaup which have been with us since the 16th.
We've had some great encounters with raptors over the past two weeks with several interactions between species to enjoy. On the 16th a peregrine was seen mobbing a buzzard on the wet grassland and what may well have been the same bird had a go at a kestrel on the sea bank on the 19th. Seconds after the kestrel had been shown who was boss the tables were turned when a very spritely ringtail hen harrier turned bully boy and moved the peregrine on. With sparrowhawk, marsh harrier and merlin also regular this week there must be a pretty good chance of a 7 raptor day at Frampton over the Christmas period. Let us know if you manage to get them all.
Hen Harrier (ringtail) - Neil Smith
Apart from the spotted redshank it's been pretty quiet on the wader front. Highlights have been 4,000golden plover over the scrapes and the incredible sight of 6,000+ lapwing taking up from the salt marsh, creating some amazing linear shapes above the sea bank. We occasionally get the odd ruff out on the scrapes but it was a nice surprise to get 50 in a group on south scrape on the 19th. We've had a few snipe sitting out on the islands on south scrape but no reports of jack snipe, until our motion camera pulled one out the bag on the evening of the 5th. He also popped up the 9th as well so still worth looking for.
For anyone planning a visit over the next few weeks keep your eyes out along the paddock hedgerows for the huge flock of 250 fieldfare! These are splendid birds and are here for one reason and one reason only, to eat all our berries. This is good as we have lots of berries but on the down side once the berries have gone, they will too so make sure you look out for them over the next few weeks as they won't be around for long.
I'll do my best to squeeze in a sightings post next week but I'll be in the Visitor Centre on Friday so may not have time to pop to the office. Please do come and say hello if you're coming in for a walk and I'll do my best to update you personally :)
Hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and look forward to sharing lots of exciting events, birds and all sorts with you in 2014.
T
The more you're out the more you see - https://twitter.com/BoyWonderBirder