Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh sightings blog. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy!
Another bit of leave for me last week, hence the lack of a blog then. But back again now, to keep you all informed of what is going on. So, as usual, time for some maps:
Good to see the beardies got through Beast from the East, part deux.
Still the party of whoopers about....
Two days in a row for a red kite. Are they moving more into the area? Corn buntings starting to sing on the reserve boundaries, a good sign of spring.
No map unfortunately for the Tuesday. But I can tell you a Slavonian grebe spent the day on the reedbed.
Spring definitely sprung (well, a little) on Wednesday, with two 'first for year' birds
Thursday on the other hand felt a lot more wintery in terms of sightings. Though the movement of whoopers did at least point to migration being underway. The brambling was on the centre feeders, a welcome addition to the centre list. We are in competition with other RSPB reserves to see which of us can see most vertebrates from inside their visitor centre (or other designated visitor building). Need a few more to catch the front-runners, RSPB Rainham Marshes.
Just the one whooper swan on Good Friday, is it the return of Hula, the lone swan from last year? Only time will tell. Good spot of water vole, been a while since anyone caught up with one of them.
Right, so any nice photos to show you? Well, what do you think....
The stonechats appear to have gone, but if you want a bird perching a showing off this merlin by Macca will do nicely.
We sometimes get asked about how to tell the difference betwqeen redshanks and ruffs. Well how is this for the ultimate comparison shot? Redshank on the left with the longer bill and redder legs. Ruff on the right with the scaly pattern on the back. Thanks to Richard bailey for this one.
Of course we don't just like birds. Lots of coltsfoot about at the moment. Superficially like a dandelion, they are unusual as their flowers show before the leaves form, unlike most plants. Jeremy Eyeons provided this close-up. He also caught this shoveler having a bit of a scratch.
Something must have been catching, this drake goldeneye was having a scratch too. Thanks to Mark Sargeant for this photo.
The rarity of the week was the Slavonian grebe. David Suddards managed to get a photo
And finally, some nice ones from Neil Smith. A spotted redshank (compare to the usual redshank above) and a pintail.
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.
Finally, if you would like to give us an extra bit of support you can text to donate money to the reserve. Please text FRAM26 followed by £2, £5 or £10 (eg FRAM26£5) to 70070.
So, that is pretty much everything. I hope you all have a great week, stay safe, and I will catch you all next time!
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.