Howdy folks, and welcome back to the sorely neglected recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the visitor guy!
Right, sorry for the radio silence over the last couple of weeks. A combination of factors meant that the blog never got done for what is nearly 3 weeks now. I'm off tomorrow on leave, but couldn't face leaving it for another week. So here it is. I hope you'll forgive me.
Right, there are a lot of maps to fill in and some absolutely stonking birds. Best get to it!
First cuckoo of the year is always a good sign
The lackey moth caterpillar colony got quite a bit of interest. Lots of caterpillar all together, protected by a silken tent which they weave. It was right by the road, on a hawthorn.
First turtle dove for the year! And an unusual sighting of a wood duck (sometimes known as a Carolina duck). Definitely an escapee, but from where?
A very late hen harrier...
And WOW!!!!!
Red-rumped swallow, first for the reserve
Green-winged teal, first for reserve
Dotterel - third or fourth for the reserve.
Now that is what you call a good day
So, red-rumped swallows are like buses. You wait ages, then two turn up together... The teal seemed to have gone though
Er, and an unfortunate end to one of the swallows. Gobbled by a hungry hobby
Woodcock would be an unusual spring sighting. We see them more often in the autumn.
Dotterel and surviving swallow still hanging on in there...
WOW!!!! Part two...
The previous two birds went. But a black-winged stilt was later upstaged by the snowy owl that had been seen at Snettisham and Wainfleet last month, then disappeared.
And then it went again...
Sorry, no map for 3 May
Oooh, snowy is back. Must be hiding out on the saltmarsh somewhere.
And some visitors got an unexpectedly close view of a stoat as it joined them in reedbed hide for a while.
Honey buzzard would be an uncommon sighting around here
Spitfires on the other hand are not quite so uncommon. This would probably be some from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
It is either a good or a bad thing that having left such a gap, I now have lots and lots of good photos to show off. Hmmm, not a huge amount of time to go through them, so here is three to whet your appetite. More next week!
Lackey moth caterpillars, by Jeremy Eyeons
Wheatear, by Mark Gosling
Wood duck, by Steve Nikols
If you are coming to visit us, you can keep up to date with the sightings by following our Twitter account. No need to have an account yourself, we make it so everyone can see it. If you do tweet yourself, please remember to use #RSPBframpton so we can see what you are posting, and also ideally mention @RSPBNorfolkLinc. If you have any good photos (or video, or even artwork) we'd love to see that too. Tweet it, or share it on our Facebook page or our Flickr account. It may also be useful for you to know the weather and tide times for the site, which may well have an impact on what is showing.
Finally, if you would like to give us an extra bit of support you can text to donate money to the reserve. Please text FRAM26 followed by £2, £5 or £10 (eg FRAM26£5) to 70070.
So, that is pretty much everything. I hope you all have a great week, stay safe, and I will catch you all next time!
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.