Howdy folks, and welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy.
Well, a lot of excitement last week with the black-winged pratincole. Would it stay for the weekend? Let's find out...
Um, that would be a no then. Alas the good weather that Friday night seems to have prompted it to do a flit. Last we heard, it was in Sweden. Mind you, that is still a pretty good selection of things to see.
Again, a nice full board on the Sunday. The grebe(s) were showing on and off for most of the day, though also being very good at disappearing when you looked away for half a second!
Great white egret is still a pretty good spot for the reserve.
And back again on the Tuesday. The weather wasn't great that day, but the school children seemed to enjoy pond dipping, and managed to dodge the rain. Which was good.
More pond dipping on the Wednesday too!
Alas, no map for Thursday, so on Friday...
So, in time-honoured fashion, after the maps come some photos. We will start with this little grebe and grebeling by Kevin Waterfield
Sticking with grebes, Guy Branston got this shot of a hungry great crested grebe about to enjoy lunch. Amusingly, it looks like the stickleback chocse just the wrong time to stick its head above the water...
Guy also provides us with this touching scene from our belted galloway cattle. And a singing sedge warbler.
Every week we have some nice photos from Jeremy Eyeons. This week a group of knot (with more and a godwit in the background) and a painted lady butterfly, which have started to appear in big numbers.
And finally another reserve regular, Mark Sargeant. Here we have a brown argus butterfly, and 'Banksy' the bank vole
If you have trouble working out which wader is which, we have three upcoming wader ID courses, run by the wardens. They will help you separate your dunlin from your curlew sandpiper, and your bar from your black tailed godwits with plenty of expert advice. On the other hand if flowers are your thing, we will have a couple of wildflower walks, led by a friendly guide. Places are limited, book today!
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.