Howdy folks! Welcome back to another edition of the Frampton Marsh sightings. With me, Chris the visitor guy!If you have read the blog earlier in the week you will know that Saturday was a record breaking day on the reserve. So we will start there with the sightings maps.
102 species were seen on the day on the RSPB reserve, with another two down by the river mouth. Stonking stuff!
The spoonbill was rather nice, it came in over the visitor centre giving great views before settling on the wet grassland behind the scrapes. Toby our warden got this long distance shot.
All a bit quieter on the bank holiday Monday, but after hearing about black terns across the rest of the country it was nice when they turned up with us too.
The black tern liked us so much, it decided to stay! :)
The firecrest and long-tailed duck were found by Ed, who was an intern here way back in 2013. Good to see you again! He got this long-range photo of the duck:
And also this shot of one of the curlew sandpipers, now getting into breeding colours
The grebe was an absolute stunner!
No sign of the grebe today, alas. But hairy dragonfly is a pretty good record for the site. And yes, the black tern is still with us!
Talking of dragonflies, as we get into May and the weather warms up (we hope!) it is time to keep yours eyes open for them and other insects. Such as this holly blue, snapped by Paul Sullivan.
Looking at bigger things with wings, the Mediterranean gulls have been showing nicely. How do you tell them apart from all the black-headed gulls? Well, they do actually have a black head, and a bright red bill. As opposed to a brown 'mask' and dark bill. They also make a "Yeow" noise, rather than the "rarr" of the black heads. Anyway, here is a great photo of one, taken by Neil Smith.
You can clearly see the full black head and red bill here. They also look whiter, without black wing tips.
Maybe harder to find are the yellow wagtails running around the fields. handy hint, look where the cows are. The big beasties disturb insects which the wagtails then catch. Neil Smith caught this one in action:
Talking of the four footed residents, we love this shot Neil Smith got of one of our hares, enjoying a drink.
You can see it is still alert though, and for good reason!
This stoat was caught on camera by StuartJPP and posted on our Flickr page. What a beauty!
Finally, a little bit of video footage of one of the reeling grasshopper warblers that has been around.
So there you have it! Remember, you can see the daily sightings on our Twitter feed. If you tweet yourself, please copy in @RSPBNorfolkLinc and the hashtag #RSPBframpton (or #RSPBfreiston if you are there). If you take photos, please add them to our Flickr page, or to our Facebook page.
That just about wraps it up for this week. So let me wish you all a great week's nature-watching, take care, 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.