Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the visitor guy.
And gosh, hasn't it been lovely weather this week. As a result we've had lots of people visiting the reserve and enjoying all our wildlife. The car park has been full most days. And yet it has still been easy to get away from the crowds and find some peace and quiet, one of the advantages of the site. So, if you haven't been one of those visiting, what did you miss? You know the drill, cue the maps...
The Derby RSPB group came to visit us on the Saturday, so of course we had to make sure there was plenty for them to see! Yes, the dowitcher is still with us. Plus the usual great supporting cast. A bit of careful observation and some photos seems to show we had both field and bank voles under the feeders, complicating matters for the future.
The female scaup popped back up again on the sunday. It does seem to spend most of the time snoozing on the reedbed islands, making it hard to spot. It is more active earlier in the morning and getting towards dusk.
A pair of red kites were a good spot. And once the great crested grebes arrive you know spring isn't too far behind.
Reappearance of bearded tits on Wednesday. They probably are around more often, it is just a question of the conditions being calm enough to pick them up.
It might not be March yet, but some of the hares are already feeling a bit mad.
And another good array of wildlife to end the week.
Right, if those are the maps, what about the fancy photos? Yes, we have those too. We will start with an viewpoint of geese that not many people take. But I think the silhouettes against the bright blue sky of these brent geese works rather well. Thank you 'micndiesel' for submitting this to our Flickr page.
A different sort of view of brent geese is given to us here by Steve Nikol.
Steve also captured this lovely spotted redshank
On the feeders Macca gives us this greenfinch
And Matthew Farrugia has this house sparrow
Finally, some of Neil Smiths shots. A drake teal, golden plovers in flight, and lapwings against the evening sky.
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
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.