Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings. With me, Chris the visitor guy!
And in true tabloid style, phew what a scorcher! As I write this the sun is beating down outside and the temperature is in the mid 20's. Sometimes extra hot weather seems to reduce the amount of sightings. But not a bit of it this week. But to start, we will dial the time machine back to last weekend....
A trial 'big sit' by some of the staff in various locations around the reserve proved interesting. The seabank seat above the bottom car park came out best with 58 species in 2 hours. Followed by the hedge seat (52) and the seat on the mound halfway down the road (51). The reedbed trailed in somewhat at 38. It just shows, you don't need to go to the hides to see great birds here at Frampton!
Temminck's stints still about, bearded tits, turtle doves..... All looking pretty good!
Sorry, no map for Monday.
Wood sandpiper popping back up again after going AWOL for a bit. Or maybe a different bird? The garganeys were back again too.
Oops, make that three garganeys. Really quite tricky to find at times. Small ducks, which like to skulk, in grassy pools. Yes, some luck is required!
Yes, everything all seems to be there. So what about these sightings I mentioned. Oh be patient my friend......
Right, first the birds. Cranes are really rather uncommon on the reserve. At the moment anyway. But with various pairs not too far away, that might always change.
As for the insects, eyed hawkmoths are pretty spectacular. Though not always the commonest thing to spot. I've never seen one for example. Typical that today is my day off! And lesser emperor dragonflies are scarce vagrants than only rarely make their way to the UK shores from southern europe.
Eyed hawkmoth (from Wikipedia)
Lesser emperor dragonfly (from Wikipedia)
Right, I am actually supposed to be on a day off, so I hope you'll forgive me if I end this here. As always, I hope you have a great week, take care, and I will catch you next time. Oh, though I will add that the weather forecast is looking good, so I will have the reserve moth trap out on Saturday night, and will be opening it up outside the visitor centre at 10 am on Sunday. Come along to see what has been caught (and if I can actually identify them!)
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.