Howdy folks, and welcome back to the Frampton Marsh sightings blog. With me, Chris the visitor guy. A changeable week with the weather, starting with grey, windy and some rain (remember that? Used to happen all the time, or so I'm told...). And ended with bright sunshine and rather warm for the time of year. What did that do to the wildlife? Well, let the maps tell the story...
The long-billed dowitcher has been with us for a month now! Still showing in that area under the seabank. The common cranes were a pair which did a fly-by. In addition, 14 whooper swans came in, very early! They didn't stick about though.
The poor weather on Sunday restricted the sightings somewhat. Yesterday's whoopers left the reserve at 10am and never came back. Nice to see whinchats still though. And the cattle egret briefly popped over from Freiston. More on that later...
The cattle egret evidently decided it liked what it saw, and so came back again. And has stayed. Clouded yellow was a good butterfly record.
The ruddy shelduck makes a reappearance. No rings on its legs, but probably far too much to hope it is a genuine wild bird from Turkey!
A wheatear gave great views, as it posed on top of reedbed hide
No sign of the grebe, but the dowitcher was still showing on Friday.
As you might note from the maps, the scrapes are not holding much at the moment. With the lack of rain we have had, the site is all rather dry, the scrapes especially so. Waders seem to be on the reedbed, or the area of wet grassland to the North of the road.
Right, so what nice photos do we have?Well, we will start with some dramatic scenery. Neil Smith got this incoming storm at Freiston Shore
Mark Sargeant found this young goldfinch keeping a careful eye out
And this hawkmoth caterpillar was in the wildlife garden. Poplar hawkmoth, I think. Though they are very similar to eyed hawkmoth caterpillars.
Dale Ayres snapped this colourful yellow wagtail
And Jeremy Eyeons has been busy, with a small copper, a mute swan and a fantastic shot of a black-tailed godwit taking off.
So that is it for another week. 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. Oh, and remember we do now sell filled rolls in the visitor centre for all your lunchtime needs.
All the best, take care, and I will catch you next time!