Howdy folks! And welcome to the Frampton Marsh weekly sightings blog. With me, Chris the visitor guy.
Right, shall we set the dial on the time machine and zoom back to last weekend...
Some good sightings there, including a starwort which is a saltmarsh specific moth. The Hurricane was probably PZ865, the last ever built and owned and operated by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
The pair of spoonbills were still giving good views on the scrapes, as were the red-crested pochards. Plane of the day was one of the BBMF Spitfires.
Yes, the cattle egret made another appearance. Isn't it odd how you wait ages for a bird and then they just hang around? Assuming it is the same one. Could be another. Just a single birds seen, unlike the two in the original sighting of a few weeks ago.
Yes, all present and correct. And then it started raining...
With the predictable result that the number of sightings dropped drastically. Oh well, it will do the ground some good!
Interesting to start to see the grey plovers coming back.
So what good photos do we have for you? Well, reserve regular Jeremy Eyeons shows here the importance of keeping all your ducks in a row...
And if we are on the cute chick photos, we cannot fail to show these reed warblers (though they may want to improve on their toilet training!). Photo by Paul Sullivan
Of course the parents are busy looking after their young. You don't get more protective than avocets, who chase off things which might want to eat their chicks...
And those that wouldn't, but just get a little too close
Photos are by Neil Smith, who has been busy on the reserve again. Not only with wildlife photos but also some stunning scenery shots
You may also notice a lot of yellow flowers about the reserve
This is charlock, or black mustard. A valuable food source for birds such as yellowhammers and corn buntings.
Talking of flowers, there is starting to be a definite purple theme going on. Not least with the amount of knapweed we have growing. Masses of it! Most is still yet to flower, when it does it will be quite a sight! All the flowers of course attract insects. There was been a lot of cinnabar moths about, and their black and yellow striped caterpillars are busily munching their way through clumps of yellow ragwort. But there ahve also been other day-flying moths, such as this narrow-bordered five-spot burnett. As photographed by Carl Seebode.
To finish up just one more shot from Neil Smith, with the spoonbills which often pose near East hide
Well, that is about it for this edition. Looking ahead the weather looks to be drier, with light cloud. Ideal really. You won't get wet, you won't get too hot or cold, and there will not be too much glare to dazzle you. the perfect time to come visit!
If you are going to visit us, you can keep up to day 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.
So, here is the end of this late and short sightings blog. Back on time and with (hopefully) lots of pictures next week. In the meantime, I hope you all have a great week, take care, have fun, and I will catch you next time.
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.