Frampton Marsh recent sightings: 30 March - 5 April 2019

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

Well, ever more evidence that spring is on the way this week. With the slight hiccup of Wednesday, with hail and sleet. Oh well, ne'er cast a clout til May be out. And no sign of any hawthorn blossom yet. What there is sign of though are sightings map. Look, there they are, just below...

So the long-billed dowitcher is *still* with us, and starting to show breeding colours. The chest is going orangey, the back getting darker. This could be the critical point of it it leaves us, or if it realises it is so far from home it might as well stay put.

An immature little gull turned up on the Sunday. With a characteristic tern-like floaty dipping flight, it does stand out from amongst the throng of black-headed gulls. There was a young Mediterranean gull out there too, though that is harder to distinguish.

A bit more birdsong on Monday, with blackcap and corn bunting both setting up territories and going into full voice. A lone pink-footed goose was wandering around the grassland.

Conditions were apparently a bit too wet to use the outside board on Tuesday. 1 is the dowitcher, 2 is brown hares, 3 is a sand martin, 4 is the little gull, 5 is a spotted redshank, 6 is a house martin (first of the year), 7 a Cetti's warbler, 8 is a little ringed plover, 9 is a swallow. Actually lots of swallows and sand martins came in during the morning, before the rain started.

Wednesday had, as already mentioned, interesting weather too but not too bad to not use the outside board. A late hen harrier was scooting over the saltmarsh. The bearded tits popped back up again too, in the small bed of reeds by the seabank car park.

Not so much to report from Thursday, aside from the warning that there are planned road closures on the way in to the reserve if you come off the roundabout at Kirton. As of Friday night they hadn't started yet (despite signs up saying they were due to), but it might be worth approaching the reserve via the brown signposted route that comes off the A16 at Wyberton.

More arriving summer migrants on Friday, with the first common terns and yellow wagtails of the year. Also a breeding plumage water pipit. Jeremy Eyeons took this photo:

So, talking of photos, how about some photos from the week? Right you are...

Well, we've already had one from Jeremy Eyeons, so how about a couple more? Here a displaying pheasant, a little grebe and a spotted redshank.

Talking of red-legged wading birds, Richard Bailey found this common redshank. 

He also got a lovely shot of a young brown hare. Or is it the Easter bunny?

Another hare portrait comes in from Graham Barker

There are still brent geese flying about, as found by Sean Browne

Macca got a nice shot of a pied wagtail, and another of a ruff showing off that 'scaly' back.

Talking of waders, a nice contrast between the spring colours of one black-tailed godwit and the winter colours of the other, in this photo by Kevin and Seri

Avocets don't change colours of course, but are increasing in numbers. Bill Simmons got this shot as a group of them took off.

Finally, we have Neil Smith. his week he provides us with another two lovely pictures of lapwings in their display flight.

You really can see the lovely bottle green sheen on their backs.

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