Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy.
Well, after the warm and dry weather of the past few weeks, the weekend was quite a change, with some significant rain. Just what we were after, as we can now start to get water back onto the scrapes and other parts of the reserve which were looking very dry. Middle scrape is likely to be first, with some land work needing to be completed on South scrape before we can flood it again. The wigeon already seem to be enjoying the wetter conditions!
Let's see what has been about with the week's maps.
The high winds blew in a red-necked phalarope which showed typically well, pirouetting about on the reedbed outside the reedbed hide. Another good rarity was the great grey shrike, discovered on the path to the river mouth during the monthly wetland bird survey. The raptors seem to have been much in evidence too.
The wetter conditions on Sunday meant the phalarope could find food on middle scrape. The cattle egret was back and showing well in the field next to the car park, hanging out with the cows. And the dowitcher was still liking its spot. Maybe we should call it Sheldon?
Monday brought a very unexpected black tern, over the pools on the wet grassland by East Hide. The phalarope had moved to the wiggly ditch south of the road, and could give some very close views there.
Tuesday was the last day for the phalarope, still in the wiggly ditch. The full drake scaup appears to have gone from the reedbed, but there has been a female there. Beware female tufted ducks with large white blazes though! A water rail proved very showy outside the main visitor centre windows, delighting those lucky enough to be inside. And two common scoter were very unusual visitors onto the main part of the reserve. Normally to be found at the river mouth, two came onto the reservoir.
Alas, no map for Wednesday
The ruddy shelduck has taken to lurking by the wiggly ditch, often in company with the Egyptian geese. Hen harriers, both males and ringtails are being increasingly seen over the saltmarsh, and sometimes on the landward side of the sea bank.
A jack snipe is always a good spot, though beware normal snipe, of which we have many. The whooper swan flock roosting on the reedbed at night is numbering 22.
Right, how about some photos?
We will start with the long-staying and equally long-billed dowitcher. Here courtesy of Dan Newton.
Ray Shrouder got some good photos on Tuesday. Here we have two of the Egyptian geese
And the phalarope
Talking of the phalarope, Andrew Chick got this photo, a great comparison of size between it and a mute swan.
Andrew also took this shot of the pair of common scoter
Steve May found the cattle egret, living up to its name.
So that is it for another week. 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. Oh, and remember we do now sell filled rolls in the visitor centre for all your lunchtime needs. Also now, the tide tables for next year are in. Just £1 and you can plan your birdwatching trips to Frampton, Freiston, Titchwell and Snettisham for the entirety of 2019! Finally, if the weather turns out to be colder than you'd planned on, you can buy hats, scarves and gloves, lovingly knitted by our lovely volunteers, from the visitor centre.
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.