Howdy folks! And welcome back to another batch of weekly sightings. With me, Chris the visitor guy.
Um, I'm afraid it might be a bit of a short one this week. Lots of birds on the reserve. Thousands of golden plover, lapwings, wigeons.... But not anything particularly rare. All about quantity and spectacle at the moment. We haven't had that many visitors either, which always limits the amount of things being reported to us too. Anyway, let's see what we have with the maps...
You can always tell when Toby (our warden) is duty manager for the visitor centre. Lots of sightings! As mentioned last week although the starlings are still around, they are murmurating well off-site now. Still visible in the distance though, assuming it isn't snowing!
No maps for Sunday to Tuesday I'm afraid. Sorry about that.
Oh yes, with the water levels in the reedbed really REALLY high, birds are coming right up close to the visitor centre. Look for wigeons, shovelers, lapwings, teals and black-tailed godwits. Including 'Stumpy', the one-legged godwit.
Bramblings are lurking in that corner of hedge. Keep your eyes peel but please don't go wandering around the farm buildings as otherwise the farmer will get annoyed at us. In this wintry weather over by the reservoir is a pretty regular place for water rail. A bit of patience (and a warm coat) should see them emerge from the reeds to probe the field for worms. And the mixed swan flock is still coming it at dusk. Mostly whoopers, but two Bewick's with them. In the day they are feeding on the fields to the West of the reserve. You may see them as you approach. Today they were close to the road via Kirton, but they do move about.
Right, that is pretty much it for sightings, what else?
Well, how about a nice video of some skylarks, as taken by Steve Black. He also took this one of a curlew. Or this video, shot by Toby, of the swans coming in to roost. Ian Ellis took a video of one of the bramblings, a super one of some pintails and this one of the water rail.
On the photographic front, well...
That is an amazing sunset photo (and we do get amazing sunsets!) by Anita White.
This female stonechat was being typically showy on top of a sunflower head. Taken by Nigel Taylor.
Remember, if you would like your photos or videos to appear here, please share them on our Flikr page, on Twitter using the #RSPBframpton hashtag, on our Facebook page, or simply by emailing them to lincolnshirewashreserves@rspb.org.uk. We can't promise to show everything that is sent, but we do like to see them.
If you want to keep up to date with the daily sightings, remember to watch our Twitter page. No need to have an account yourself, we keep it public so everyone can see what is going on.
Right, that is about it. So I hope you have a good week, fun birding, stay safe and big hugs to you all!
(Mute swan by Jeremy Eyeons)
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.