Frampton Marsh recent sightings: 10 - 15 March 2018

Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings with me, Chris the Visitor Guy. Fresh from some time off, which is why there wasn't a sightings blog last week. So lets get straight back onto it, with this week's maps.

As you can see from last Sunday's map, the avocets are starting to come back in numbers. Always a good sign of spring.

Though old faithfuls like the long-billed dowitcher and the short-eared owl are still about.

A water rail was a nice spot for a lucky visitor. And the short-eared owl flew right over my head as I was writing up the board.

And then it started to get windy...

Boxing hares are of course a great March spectacle

And a decent number of whooper swans are still about. Dusk is now after 6pm though, so you may need to hang around a bit later than earlier in the year.

Strong winds and interesting weather will have made photography difficult this week. But here are a couple of pictures by Nigel Sprowell taken back in January and just uploaded. A drake pintail and a shoveler duck. You can even see the fine 'comb' in the shoveler's bill, used for sifting out food from the water.

Sticking with shovelers, Dale Ayres took a portrait of this pair.

And moving onto the land, Macca supplies us with a skylark

So there you have it! 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!

Chris