Each week our residential volunteer Toby will be letting know what he has been up to. Here we have the first of these regular blogs.
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So, here’s my first of what will become a weekly update about my jaunts and what I’ve been up to here on the reserve.
This was the day of unpacking and getting settled in, but the inner birder in me wanted to go out and explore. It didn’t take long before I had my binoculars round my neck, scope over my shoulder and scanning every wader I could looking for that potential interesting rarity. So lucky to have both the quantity and quality of birds around on the reserve, avocets on every scrape, always a skylark singing somewhere and the swifts flying past like fighter jets as they pursue tiny insects. But it wasn’t long before I found something interesting; was walking down the steps off the sea-bank towards the top car park when suddenly a red dragonfly whizzed past, puzzled at first, I noticed it had rested on the path ahead of me. To my astonishment it was a red-veined darter! This red dragonfly is very rare with a few breeding populations along the south coast but with this recent heatwave on the continent, there has been an influx of these little fellas. Turns out I’d only just found the 11th record ever for Frampton! What a way to kick things off with.
One part of my internship is to help with the Visitor Centre, including doing a few shifts over the coming months. On my first shift everything was going smooth until when talking to a couple of visiting birders I noticed the local black-headed gulls were going mental, all congregating in the air above the nearest section of reeds to the Visitor Centre. When suddenly an OTTER pops up in front! For the next hour and a half this otter was causing chaos on the reedbed pool, it even prompted a staff twitch and soon after one became two otters! This is only the second ever sighting of Otter on the reserve with the first only being two days prior on 30 June.
Time for some bling
Every day I’ve been birding before and after work, so lucky to the reserve on my doorstep. To see species such as little gulls, avocets, short-eared owls and spoonbills every day is something you don’t get to say too often. A part of birding I have enjoyed is reading colour-ringed birds which help to track the whereabouts of these fellas, since starting here I’ve read 20 colour-ringed birds with mostly being black-tailed godwits, one bird stood out against the rest. Turns out this individual was ringed on the Wash as an adult back in November of 1998, which makes it not just 20 years old but also older than I am! A few other interesting colour-ring sightings include a Dutch ringed spoonbill and a Portuguese ringed black-tailed godwit, no doubt as the weeks progress colour-ringed birds will feature heavily in my updates.
The Emperor and the Dwarf Heron
On Thursday (5th July), work had finished at the office, so I got changed and headed out onto the reserve as per usual. Went onto the sea bank to scan the saltmarsh in hope of short-eared owls or marsh harriers when I noticed a painted lady butterfly was mobbing a noticeably large dragonfly. My initial thoughts was an emperor due to its green eyes but then the dragonfly went down the sea bank and onto the saltmarsh where I noticed the brown body and only a small blue ring near the wings. It was a LESSER EMPEROR!!! This rare dragonfly gets seen in the UK probably 5-10 times a year but like with the red-veined darter the recent warm weather had brought an influx but still very rare to see, after doing some digging I found out this was only the 2nd ever record for Frampton!
Already had an excellent evening, I sat at the visitor centre getting my stuff packed away to head back when I heard snipe drumming, this was the first time I’d ever seen this spectacle. Before long I was watching three snipe drum in front of me, could it get any better??? Literally standing up to leave when I noticed a small heron/egret fly up from the wet grassland, put my binoculars up and realised it was a SQUACCO HERON, this was a first ever for Frampton! Watched it fly around for around 40 seconds before it flew off not to be seen again. Thankfully a local birder refound it the next day at RSPB Frieston Shore just up the road which gave excellent views.
Well what a week that has been, can this upcoming week match it or be even better?