Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy.
Well, given the time of year it has been remarkably warm. but have the sightings been as hot as the weather? Only one way to find out, cue the maps!
A bit of a damp and windy day on the Saturday, though some good things happening at Freiston. In addition to those things shown on the map, the long-billed dowitcher was at position 3 on the map.
Sunday was a very much nicer day in terms of weather. The cattle egret showed well amongst the cows near to the road for most of the day.
The warmer weather means there have still been quite a few butterflies about, but the clouded yellow on Monday was very nice. A ringtail hen harrier hints at the winter ahead...
Willow emerald damselfly was another good insect sighting. This was the last day the cattle egret was seen.
Another clouded yellow (or the same one?) on what really was a lovely day. Warm, sunny and still.
A male hen harrier hunting just outside the reserve was a great sight for Thursday.
The strong winds made birdwatching difficult on Friday, but there was still stuff out there to be found.
So, some advice. Currently given the dry nature of the scrapes (which we wish we could do something about), the site is behaving in a more tidally-affected manner than usual. If you are at the reserve at high tide, you will find a large wader flock (mostly black-tailed godwits, but other things in there too) on the reedbed. This will disappear off roughly 90 minutes after peak tide, and the site will be mostly wildfowl (though with some birds like the spotted redshanks and the dowitcher still about). The flock will then return about 90 minutes before high tide. So paying attention to the tide times may be of more importance than it usually is.
That said, it looks like a wet weekend ahead, so that may help with the dryness issues.
Right, how about some nice photos?
This is a lovely portrait of a snipe, taken by Nigel Sprowell.
Steve Whiteley caught this little egret in flight, showing the bright yellow feet to perfection.
And Macca got a very posey blue tit.
Finally a couple of videos. As you may have seen from the maps, ruby tiger moth caterpillars have been roaming the paths. Oh my! Here is one in action.
And during the week we had teams of science students from the Giles Academy come to visit us and learn about the reserve. One of the things they did was pond dipping, turning up these big beautiful beasties. Great diving beetles, fantastic to see them.
So that is it for another week. 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. Oh, and remember we do now sell filled rolls in the visitor centre for all your lunchtime needs. Also now, the tide tables for next year are in. Just £1 and you can plan your birdwatching trips to Frampton, Freiston, Titchwell and Snettisham for the entirety of 2019! Finally, if the weather turns out to be colder than you'd planned on, you can buy hats and gloves, lovingly knitted by one of our lovely volunteers, from the visitor centre.
All the best, 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.