Howdy folks! Welcome back to another edition of the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the visitor guy.
So Saturday was the first day of Autumn. "What, isn't that later on Into September?", I hear you cry. Ah, there are various different flavours of season. The astronomical and calendar season of Autumn begins on 23 September. But the meteorological season starts on 1 September. Confused? It gets worse... If you follow a daylight-based argument (as the ancient Irish did) then Autumn actually begins a week into August! Whatever the case, the wildlife certainly believes it is autumn with definite migration happening. Time to hit the maps!
One of the recent features of late have been the yellow wagtails, seemingly everywhere! They have often been seen very well from the visitor centre, being just outside the main windows.
Still lots of visitors coming for both the stilt sandpiper and the long-billed dowitcher. So much so we had to have someone on the gate. See this video to see them in action!
The turtle doves, having proved elusive all year, were actually showing not too badly. And the sight of youngsters proved another successful breeding year.
Well, most of the time anyway! A young black tern on the reservoir was nice, and there had been lots of reports of them at the river mouth.
After nearly two weeks, the stilt sandpiper finally decided it had better things to do, and disappeared.
And the dowitcher followed suit the day after. A ruddy shelduck was an unusual sighting for the reserve. It had been at Freiston the day before.
Er, then again, maybe the dowitcher hadn't gone. Goodness knows where it went on the Wednesday, but it was relocated in the usual haunts on the Thursday. Over at Freiston Shore, a cattle egret was showing well.
No map as yet for Friday.
So, maybe you'd like some nice photos? We will start with the ongoing star performer, the long-billed dowitcher. At times it came very close to the reedbed hide, allowing some cracking shots. This one is by Owen Beaumont
Elsewhere, Dale Ayres found this male linnet, enjoying some dock seeds
Jeremy Eyeons took this supremely dramatic picture of a female sparrowhawk
Paul Higgs got a nice portrait of one of the many ruff on site
One the outside of the visitor centre there is a swallow's nest. Mark Sargeant visited at feeding time
From swallows to martins, and this pair of sand martins. One of them seems to be checking if it needs any deodorant! Graeme Mounteney too this one.
Alan Brewster took this photo of the Freiston cattle egret
And one I missed from last week, Steve Nikols got a great picture of this male yellowhammer.
Finally, something a bit risque. Kids safely out of the room? Yes? Good, time for a bit of naughtiness....
With this pair of mating willow emerald damselflies, as taken by Paul Sullivan.
So that is it for another week. Lots of good stuff to be seen, I am sure you agree. 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.
All the best, take care, and I will catch you next time!
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.