Frampton Marsh recent sightings: 23 February - 1 March 2019

Howdy folks! And welcome back to another Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy.

Another fun-packed (well, sightings-packed) edition for you this week. So with no further ado, we will crack on and get to the maps. Actually wait, no we won't. We have an amendment to make to the last couple of week's editions. The female scaup being reported, isn't. John the site manager got a good look at it on Saturday whilst doing his WeBS survey and has pinned it down as a female pochard/tufted duck hybrid. Very tricky things, they do look very much like scaup. So anyway, sorry for any confusion.

Right, and NOW the sightings...

Bearded tits are being more active in the reedbed. Catching a sight or sound of them will depend a lot on the weather though. Even a capfull of wind and they can prove frustratingly elusive. The WeBs count also provided sightings of shags and guillemots at the river mouth. And of a turnstone on the wet grassland. A stoat gave great views for a few lucky people, by the sea bank car park.

It was a double anniversary on Sunday, with exactly 6 months worth f the long-billed dowitcher to celebrate. Plus, it was the 274th birthday of Sir Joseph Banks. A major force in the world of British science (he was president of the Royal Society for 41 years), he was also a Lincolnshire lad, his family being based at Revesby. You can find out more about his life here.

Much excitement on Monday with the discovery of a green-winged teal, the American equivalent to our teal. They do look rather similar, but the white flash on the side of the green-winged teal goes vertically, rather than horizontally. This was only the second for the reserve, and spent a large portion of the day snoozing.

Another birthday on Tuesday, with the anniversary of the founding of RSPB Titchwell. The teal was still in place, as was the dowitcher, the bearded tits and so on.

By Wdnesday the teal has disappeared from view, though with the number of ducks on site it could be lurking out there somewhere. 30 corn buntings is a good count, hopefully we will get a few males singing this year.

A little stint was reported on the Thursday, could be worth searching for.

Alas, there was no map for Friday.

Right, time for some photos I think. And we will start with the star of the week, the green winged teal.

Here it is, the right hand bird of the two drake teals. You can see the difference with the Eurasian teal on the left. Thanks to Mick Bird for this photo.

Mick also uploaded a few more photo onto our Flickr page. Here are a buzzard and a spotted redshank.

Spotted redshanks do seem to have been something of the flavour of the week on the Flickr site. Here is another, from Matthew Mellor

Matthew also got a great shot of just a few of our golden plovers in flight. An impressive sight, as they twist and wheel to escape the attention of predators such as the local peregrine falcons.

In contrast, this skylark was staying firmly put on the ground, unlike its name suggests! The first photo is by Macca, the second by Graham Marker.

Out on the water, the goldeneyes are displaying and even mating. Mark Sargeant got a nice shot of this smart female.

Whilst Jeremy Eyeons got this picture of a blue tit.

Finally, whilst walking the wetland trail, our assistant warden Simon came across this character, strolling along the path. The warm weather has the first signs of spring going, and this toad was making its way back to the ancestral spawning pond. Good luck to it!

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