Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings. With me, Chris the visitor guy. And a merry Christmas to all our readers too.
Right, so what has been about? Er, well bits and bobs. Cue the maps...
Sunday was rather rubbish weather, with only a merlin, a kingfisher and a stoat being of note, and those all around the centre.
Cetti's warblers are usually very skulky, so this one was a surprise as it was coming out into the open and perching to have its photo taken! As for #6, there ain't no party like a long-tailed tit party. Especially when a dozen or more descend upon the visitor centre feeders.
The wind dropped on Wednesday, which was probably the reason the bearded tits were seen/heard. The drake red-crested pochard started off on the reedbed first thing, but then relocated to the reservoir for the rest of the day. Worth searching through all the wigeon for!
The whooper swan flock is now in its high 50's. Great if you can position yourself so they fly over you on their way into roost on the reedbed.
There was a cracking male hen harrier just as the centre opened, cruising across the car park and then sitting in the field opposite. Fantastic views for those of us lucky enough to be present.
So, that is the week's sightings, what about the photos? And videos of course. Young Ornithologist of the Year, Toby Carter, was at the reserve yesterday and got this footage of just a few of the brent geese that are hanging around.
Toby also had a close encounter with a merlin at East hide.
Sticking with birds of prey, a kestrel found the Reflector sculpture to be a handy resting place, and was caught doing so by andyno43
He also found this meadow pipit, nice to get such a good shot of what can be a wary bird. especially if there are merlins and kestrels about!
Rather more prone to posing are of course the stonechats. Stonechat photo of the week this week belongs to Rod Smith for this nice male
And to cap it all off, a Christmas robin, courtesy of Mark Sargeant
So that is about it. As a reminder, the reserve never shuts. So if you want to come down on Christmas Day to escape as the kids battle over the boxes and ignore the toys, or get out from under the chef's feet as they boil the turkey and roast the sprouts, you can. A nice bit of quiet birdwatching, or even just a gentle walk to work off some of that pudding. The visitor centre will be closed though, but just for that one day. We are open as usual on Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and all other days. Do pop in and say hello. Mince pies gratefully received!
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.
The last thing for me to do is wish all of you a very merry Christmas, take care, and I will see you next time for the last sightings blog of 2017.
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.