Coming off the back of last weeks sightings with a very photo heavy theme, I'm happy to throw open the doors to opinions and ask what you want from the sightings blog. I appreciate this a bit of lead balloon as we often ask for feedback and never get it but I'll give it a another try, new year, new outlook and all that :) Last week's blog was picture heavy and pretty brief and in previous posts I have given quite detailed counts and dates. What do you, the readers and visitors to this fantabulous reserve, want to see in the sightings blog? Lots of pictures and less waffle, more detail on what birds are here and where, maximum counts and dates, key species only? If you're happy to let me mix and match but if there are strong preferences please let us know by e-mailing us, posting a comment on this blog, or leaving feedback on our Twitter or Facebook sites.
And so to our sightings. We'll pick up with our stop press news from last week's blog that came in the brightly coloured form of a male Red-crested Pochard. This delighted many visitors over the weekend but unfortunately wasn't around on Monday morning. Keeping him company for his 2 day stay were our reliable pair of Scaup, with the male now starting to moult into his summer plumage.
Red-crested Pochard - Ian Ellis
Scaup (drake and duck) - Ian Ellis
The 4 European White-fronted Geese remained out on the grassland where they could be seen rubbing shoulders with Canada Geese, Greylag Geese and also a small party of Pink-footed Geese that dropped in over the weekend. The 38 Whooper and 2 Bewick's Swans continue to roost on the reserve while feeding in fields adjacent to nearby Sandholme Lane.
Away from the unusual wildfowl we celebrate the numbers and sheer volume of birds that populated the Marsh Farm wet grassland. A good chunk of these were made up of Wigeon and Teal, but the majority of the (conservatively estimated) 12,000+ birds out there were Golden Plovers and Lapwings (6 thousand of the first and 2 thousand of the second).
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Apologies for cutting this short but I had done a full blog but the wonderous computers that we have here at work signed me out without telling me. Hence when I went to post the finished blog I wasn't allowed to and couldn't save it as I was signed out :( Sorry. Will try and update it when I'm back next week
Hope you have a better weekend than my last two hours.
The more you're out the more you see - https://twitter.com/BoyWonderBirder
Hi, Toby. I don't really care too much about the format, I just appreciate that you take the time to do one. I suspect that if you find it interesting, then the rest of us will.
Most of my visits are at the weekend so I agree with the previous comment about posting it on a Friday if possible.
Alan