Hello,
It has been a glorious start to the weekend. There was a little frost and fog to start with, but the strong sunshine has soon burnt that away.
Site manager John Badley, is lucky enough to be on Scilly for a couple of weeks, so I have been drafted in to do his wetland birds survey (WeBS). This is a very nice job to do, as it involves doing a survey of the whole reserve, counting every wetland bird that can be seen.
The only problem with this morning is that Wales play France in the semi final of the Rugby World Cup, so an early start was required so I could get back for kick off!
Seen on the reserve this morning were:
Mute swan 10
Canada goose 104
Barnacle goose 3
Brent goose 364
Greylag goose 156
Pink-footed goose 4
Shelduck 7
Mallard 41
Wigeon 17 (812 on Wednesday)
Teal 240
Shoveler 5
Gadwall 2
Coot 13
Moorhen 4
Little grebe 13
Heron 2
Little egret 5
Black-headed gull 19
Herring gull 4
Lapwing 104
Golden plover 3
Black-tailed godwit 32
Ruff 12
Dunlin 28
Snipe 5 (50+ on Thursday)
Ringed plover 5
Redshank 3
There was also female merlin terrorising the large charm of goldfinches.
Hare 1
Lots to see on the reserve today, so why not visit while the weather is still good?
Cheers,
Simon.