Frampton Marsh recent sightings: 17 - 23 December 2016

Seasons greetings! Yes, it is a festive edition of the Frampton Marsh sightings. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy.

I'm afraid it is another short one, as I can hear the mince pies calling my name. So lets get right down to it, with some maps.

A couple of full days there, as you can see. This does appear to be the last time the scaup was seen. So either it is hiding, or it has moved on. Lots of confusion with young tufted ducks, but closer examination of likely candidates always revealed a wispy tuft at the back of the head.

The starling murmuration has been a new feature. previously we've only had a couple of hundred, but now the numbers are increasing...

3:30 pm onwards is definitely becoming a prime time to visit. As well as the starlings the barn owls continue to show well at 4 pm, and the whooper swans who have spent the day feeding on nearby fields come when it is almost dark. Plus the sunsets can be truly spectacular.

The lack of sightings here is probably more indicative as to how quiet for visitors it has been, rather than how quiet for birds. There are certainly big numbers of golden plover, wigeon, and lapwing all over the wet grasslands. You can see this from the map for Thursday, when reserve staff had been out doing bird surveys.

So yes, in reality quite a lot of things out there. And a reserve record for the number of wigeon too! The starlings have been in ever increasing numbers as well. Estimates are now at 4,000 strong. You can see a little video, that John our site manager took on his phone here.

No map for Friday I'm afraid.

Some bonus Saturday videos though, courtesy of Dan Newton. Doing the double of hen harriers, with a 'ringtail' and a male.

So, that's a quick run through the sightings. What else can I tell you? Well, we are winners. In fact doubly so!

You may remember right at the start of the year I wrote a blog post about the 'Golden Welly' competition between RSPB reserves. The idea being to see who could get most different types of wader onto their reserve. Well the results are out and I'm pleased to say we've won it for the fifth year in a row. Five out of five, in fact. This year we found 34 species of wader on the reserve, beating Titchwell by a single species. This will be the last year of the Golden Welly, so it is great we've kept our 100% record. Next year there will be a different competition, based around the Patchwork Challenge.

Then on Wednesday I got an email from my friend Jamie in the press office at HQ, congratulating us on winning the Birders Choice Award for best site. What is this? Well, Birdwatch magazine has been running a poll among its readers with awards for various different categories. You may have seen Toby mention it in passing on his sightings blogs. Well, thousands of birdwatchers from across the country voted, and we came out top in the 'Best site of 2016' category. Thank you very much to everyone who voted for us, it is a great honour.

So should you want to come to an award winning reserve, when are we open over the festive period? Well, the reserves (both Frampton and Freiston) are open 24/7. The Frampton visitor centre does close for Christmas Day, but will reopen with normal opening times (9:30 am - 4 pm) on Boxing Day. Oh, and we've got a new coffee machine serving really lovely coffee. As if you needed that added incentive to come see us!

So, time for me to wrap this up by wishing you all a Merry Christmas. Hope you have a lovely day, take care, and I'll see you next time.