Howdy folks! Welcome back to the Frampton Marsh recent sightings blog. With me, Chris the Visitor Guy!
Remember how I mentioned how some people think July is a rubbish time to go birdwatching, and then proved them wrong? Well, more of the same this week! Roll on the maps...
First merlin of the year, a 2 year old. Very early! Maybe with how dry a lot of moorland it, it has left to search out better times by the coast?
Still a good variety of waders, with the pectoral sandpiper staying put
Less sightings on Tuesday is probably more a reflection of less visitors, rather than less birds.
As Wednesday proves!
And now, the sighting of the week....
A fantastic full plumage adult white winged black tern graced the reserve for a few hours. Cracker! Alas, it had gone by the evening.
At the time of writing, there was no Friday sightings map. If it appears later, I'll add it back in. But wanted to get the blog out before the weekend so everyone knows to come and visit.
Right, after a lax week last week, how about some photos? And we will start with some nice scenery, by Pete Russell
Dawns and sunsets always make the reserve look stunning. It is the amount of sky we have.
Moving onto wildlife...
Mark Jackson took the portrait of this goldfinch, mid lunch. He also found this somewhat battered painted lady butterfly
Talking of butterflies, Owen Beaumont was loving all the holly blues we have right now.
Moving back to birds, Nicola Riley took this fantastically composed view of a little egret
And Steve Nikols did the same with the snipe
And this parent and chick duo of little ringed plovers.
To end with, we have regular Jeremy Eyeons. His first photo shows a skylark that has evidently decided flying whilst singing is too much bother on these hot days, and has gone for a more static option....
And in the second we have a nice group of well coloured black-tailed godwits. On one of them you can see how flexible the bill is, with the upper mandible curved upwards.
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.
So that is it from me. Hope you all have a great week, stay safe, and I'll catch you next time!