With no headline grabbing birds this week it was down to single day to be the highlight, and what a day it was. The 23rd saw myself, site manager John and RSPB living legend Norman Sills (he MADE RSPB Titchwell!!) out on the scrapes as we discussed, if you can believe it, how to make Frampton even better. We were wandering around North Scrape in quite a brisk wind, hearing the chatter of several thousand black-tailed godwit in the air as calling goldfinch, siskin and redpoll (including some larger and paler birds) moved over head. A sudden whoosh turned the three of us around to see a cloud of godwits rise up in unison. A couple of twists and turns had us mesmerized but out of the corner of our eyes we picked up a dark rocket of feathery awesomeness, a large female peregrine was looking for lunch. She banked and jinked before climbing to stoop again. As our eyes followed her up we picked out a second smaller bird, a male. It was now his turn to harry and pick a target. A flick of the wings and barrel roll later he'd picked out a knot, the hunt was on. For the next 4-5 minutes we watched the pair take it in turns to stoop and pursue the hapless wader as it jinked and flinched its way out of a pair of talons. Just the most incredible thing to watch, unfortunately not to be part of I'm sure. Obviously the long journey from the Arctic tundra hadn't had any negative effects as the pair departed empty footed. We did see them returning half an hour later for another go, this time the wildfowl on the grassland had caught their eyes.
The next bird we saw wasn't quite as intense to watch but was much more surprising. A house martin struggling into the wind, no doubt wishing that it'd set off that little bit earlier and was somewhere over Spain rather than being buffeted about outside Boston.
While the scrape was pretty empty, due to the presence of three gents stomping about and a lack of water, it did bring in two little stint that alighted briefly on a pool edge before lifting off heading south. There's a good chance they dropped down in South Scrape as 2 were seen later that evening and again on Thursday. Other bids moving through included merlin, skylark, meadow pipit, jackdaw and woodpigeon and what was presumably a continental Great Spotted Woodpecker flew along the sea bank and over the reserve. It has been a pretty good week for visible migration with our friends at Gibraltar Point having their best day of the year so far on the 24th. To keep up to speed with Gib's sightings follow them on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook or keep tabs on the Lincolnshire Bird Club sightings page.
Little Stint - Ian Ellis
South Scrape was again the place to watch with a huuuge numbers of birds. The WeBS count from Sunday produced a reserve record of black-tailed godwits and later in the week an unexpected wood sandpiper hung around for three days till the 24th with a more expected pectoral sandpiper present on the evening of the 20th. Little stint peaked at 5 on the 20th while 15 avocet, 3 curlew sandpiper and 2 spotted redshank were about all week. The 23rd was a hat trick for one of our regulars who had a jack snipe in the same place as it had been for the previous 2 evenings.
And I know we've been banging on about it lots and lots but this week it was confirmed. We are the best RSPB reserve for waders!! Our monthly count of 29 in September and overall count of 32 in the year put's in top spot across the board. However we think we can do better still, so in the next few weeks we'll be having some heavy machinery on the scrapes, as alluded to above, to improve them for breeding, wintering and passage birds. If there's enough interest I'll happily write a blog letting you know what we're doing and why. Alternatively you can just take our word that we know what we're doing and enjoy the spoils of our labour in the spring :)
Waders galore on South Scrape - Ian Ellis
And don't forget Freiston. As the Wash fills up with birds Freiston transforms and fills with birds due to the lower land levels of mud and salt marsh surrounding it. As it gets covered with water more often than the Frampton salt marsh there are more opportunities to see more birds up close. We really are spoiling you. Unfortunately the tides are low this coming week but I'll pop high tide times up in next weeks round up in time for the high tides that weekend. If you can't wait that long we sell tide timetables on the reserve which will take you through to September next year or check out tide times here.
Grey plover at Freiston - Neil Smith
With our attentions now turning to winter wildfowl it was great to have some whooper swans about at the end of the week with 39 seen on the morning of the 24th. With our wet grassland slowly getting wetter we'll hopefully look to keep a few of them for a bit longer than the brief resting periods we're currently holding them for.
Whooper swans - Ian Ellis
On a final note just a quick reminder that if you want more up to date sightings than once a week, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook or just favourite our thread on BirdForum.
The more you're out the more you see - https://twitter.com/BoyWonderBirder