Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy.
As is by now traditional, we will start with the week's sightings maps. Available each day on our Twitter feed.
Still lots of waders about, though numbers of black-tailed godwits are rising and those of bar-tailed were dipping. The red-crested pochard was an unusual spot. Alas it dove into the reedbed and didn't reappear.
Marbled white would be a great sighting for the reserve. They like knapweed, and we do have lots of that about at the moment. Just shows, it is worth keeping your eyes open and not just looking at the birds.
Two old favourites return, with spoonbill and little gull both being spotted again after a few weeks absence.
Up to 7 spoonbills were present on Wednesday. Wood sandpiper is a good spot too, things starting to move...
A great spot on Thursday, as an osprey drifted over the reserve and headed inland. Interesting to see a garganey back on the reservoir too, things are definitely moving...
Grey wagtails are not that common for us, though you can see them in town along the river.
So, after the maps come the pictures. We'll start off with one of a species that lots of people have been trying to find, turtle dove.
Matt Fitzgerald managed to find this one. My advice would be to check the maps, and come early or late. They are quite hard to find in the middle of the day, but early morning and later in the evening they become a lot easier to find.
Something you would not like to find, or rather you don't want it to find you, is this black-horned clegg. As photographed by Paul Sullivan.
Paul has been doing some great macro work recently. Here is one by him of a small yellow-legged robber fly
and these cardinal beetles behaving quite unlike churchmen should!
Reserve regular Jeremy Eyeons has been busy too. Firstly with a ruff, looking a bit rough...
Then this young little ringed plover
And an adult bird
He also captured this young shoveler having a drink
Finally, we'll end as we so often do, with Neil Smith...
Reed warbler
Sea lavender
And finally, ever been to a barbecue or buffet, and when fresh food is brought out there is a mad scramble for it? These gulls, herons and egrets were doing that when small fish got trapped in a shallow pool by dropping water levels.
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.
This should be a great weekend with the tides, for example. Some pretty big ones, and at sensible times:
Saturday: 7:37 am and 8:08 pm
Sunday 8:22 am and 8:58 pm
Monday 9:06 am (evening tide after sunset)
Tuesday 9:50 am
This should be good for both Frampton and Freiston as extra birds get pushed in. Titchwell had a lesser yellowlegs today, so who knows what might be out there..
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.