If you’ve been down to the reserve, you might have seen the sheep that we have grazing on the reedbed and scrapes habitats. These act as natural lawn mowers, keeping the grass short for ducks and geese later in the year.

All of the sheep had been scanned to see if any were pregnant and it seemed none were. It was a bit of a surprise then to find a little lamb in with all the sheep on the scrapes last week. I guess…

Highlights this week were few and far between with poor weather and low tides contributing to less pairs of keen eyes being out and about. The one day Quail from last week may well still be around as one was flushed from the Cross Bank on the 4th and another was then heard in the same field they were heard in last week. Some late nights might be in order to see if they're still present. The other highlight this week was…

It's that time again, we've got another Sunday funday running this weekend at Frampton Marsh! This time we've got fluttering butterflies, brilliant badges, pipecleaner dragonflies and even a butterfly feeder for you to make and take home. It starts at 10.30am and runs throughout the day until 4pm. There's no need to book, just turn up and enjoy getting creative. It costs £3 per child with a 25% discount…

This weird and wonderful looking plant is a bee orchid. They get their name from their main pollinator, the bee, and have an unusual way of drawing them in. The flower looks and smells like a female bee so male bees are attracted to the flowers and fly in to attempt to mate. The bee gets covered in pollen, in turn pollinating the next orchid it visits.

Bee orchid- George Polden

Bee orchids can take 5-8 years to flower…

A quick summary of this week's highlights start with the trio of crowd drawing Temminck's Stints from last week which remained until the 24th but haven't put in an appearance since.

Unfortunately the best bird of the week can't be added to the reserve list as it was 'off piste'. A couple of Quail were heard giving their distinctive 'wet my lips' song from neighbouring fields on the 26th but…

Looking for something to do with the kids this half-term? Bring them along to Frampton Marsh for a wild time!

Running all week we have a treasure trail. Follow the trail around the surfaced paths and find out all about how animals migrate. Answer the questions correctly and when you return to the visitor centre, you will win a prize. £1 per child to take part.

On the Tuesday, we are doing pond dipping. Investigate…

Another double header this week due to my absence last week. Hopefully this won't be a regular occurrence but if you are wanting more up to date information on what's about on the reserve then do follow our twitter feed and facebook page. Alternatively we do have a BirdForum thread and the Lincolnshire Bird Club sightings page is always worth a look before planning a visit.

Wader passage has been a bit hit and…

No, certainly not my self-image! It is this time of year when birds are nesting, and we are starting to see some serious cute little fluffy chicks out there.

For starters, if you are in the visitor centre, keep your eyes open for mother duck and her (currently) 11 little ducklings. We're not quite sure where her nest was, but the mother duck, a mallard, likes to take her brood around the shore and islands close to the…

Todays beautiful weather really makes me feel like summer is just around the corner. Walking around the reserve you are treated with the sounds of chaotic sedge warblers, rhythmic reed warblers and melodic skylarks amongst others. This really is an exciting time of year at the reserve when chicks start to appear and butterflies and dragonflies are increasing in numbers.

Lapwing chicks- Neil Smith

We’ve got a Family…

Hello and welcome to another weekly round up.

Our big news this week came off the back of an informal 24 hour bird race run between midlands nature reserves. Our super dooper Visitor Services Officer Chris did Frampton proud and a dawn to dusk watch resulted in a personal tally of 86 species and aided by our excellent visitors and volunteers a combined reserve tally of 94 species!! There were some glaring omissions form…

Find out what watery wildlife lurks in the weedy depths of our pond by hiring our pond dipping equipment! Starting on Saturday 10 May you can come along to the visitor centre here at Frampton Marsh and hire the equipment to search for our aquatic friends. There are loads of creatures for you to discover including diving beetles, water boatman and freshwater shrimp. We’ve even got an I.D. sheet for you to borrow so you…

Hellooooo :D Hope everyone's well and gearing up for their Bank Holiday Weekend. A whole extra day of birding at the Lincolnshire Wash Reserves. It's what a Monday off work was made for. 

Things have been a little more settled this week. The main migrant rush is over and arrivals are now settling into their territories and will be in full voice this weekend, hence why International Dawn Chorus Day is on Sunday…

I think you'll agree this little chap below looks pretty amazing considering he's millions of years old!!! Of course he isn't actually that old but muntjacs are the oldest known deer and are thought to have been around 15-35 million year ago. On Monday I spotted one on the reserve just along the hedgerow and recently we’ve been seeing the odd one in the office garden.

Muntjac- Alfonso Paz

These small…

BUMPER BLOG ALERT!!! Hope you're all settle down as you've got two weeks worth of sightings to get through. Apologies to those expecting my blog last week. I was at home with my bambinos for Easter and I live in the middle of nowhere and don't have internet access so was unable to compile and submit anything, sorry. Hopefully I can make it up to you this week and that little blip will soon be forgotten :)

While in the visitor centre the other day I couldn’t help but marvel at how pretty great crested grebes are. Their great head plumes make them look like they’ve got attitude, the ‘punks’ of the bird world in my opinion.

We see these elegant waterbirds regularly here at Frampton Marsh and most of the time can be viewed from the Visitor Centre. They have an elaborate courtship display where they…

Whistle stop highlights this week as I've been chasing water around making sure our Lapwing and Redshank have the best breeding habitat possible on the grassland (not too wet, not too dry) while dropping water levels on south scrape, raising them on middle scrape and keeping them the same on the reedbed. Spinning plates is a doddle compared to this :)

So firstly first, the Great White Egret, did it stay or did it…

So the last week of March finally gave up the goods with the last of our expected early arrivals pitching up along with a special guest to boot. The two arrivals missing from last week's sightings made it this week, though both were very brief. The first Wheatear of 2014 was seen out on the saltmarsh on the morning of the 28th and our first Sand Martin sighting was a couple over the Marsh Farm reservoir on the 1st…

Well it’s been exactly a year now since I started as a visitor services trainee here at Frampton Marsh and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. My position here is mostly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) as part of the Skills for the Future programme and without them this traineeship wouldn’t be available.

The Skills for the Future programme funds work-based training in a wide range of skills that…

Well I was nearly right with my migrant predictions last week. After last week's Chiffchaff at both reserves and Little Ringed Plover at Freiston I was expecting to let you know about Garganey, Wheatear and Sand Martin arriving. Unfortunately only one of these touched down during the recent sightings timescale (though we did have Wheatear today but that counts as next week). A pair of Garganey were on the South Scrape…

I bet that title's been used before, but I can never resist a pun. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about a great wildlife experience I had only a few minutes ago - while driving down the reserve road, on the way back from checking something out on the marsh, I spotted a flash of movement on my left. A female sparrowhawk leapt straight off a fence post and immediately drew level, flying low just the other side of…

You can have a fun-filled Easter holiday with at RSPB Frampton Marsh, with a whole clutch of special activities.

All through the school break, you can turn detective and try to crack the clues on the Easter egg hunt.

After picking up an entry sheet from the visitor centre, you follow the tricky trail and unscramble the puzzle. If you get the answers right, when you return to the centre you win a chocolatey reward!

It seems last weeks photo spectacular sightings blog went down pretty well (thank you for all your feedback and please keep it coming) so we'll stick with it and showcase more of the fantastic pictures that have been taken of our fantastic wildlife. 

We thought we'd seen the last of this winter's big groups of Whooper Swans with over 120 departing last week so it was a nice surprise to see 53 on the reedbed on the…

'I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze’

It’s no surprise really that William Wordsworth found inspiration to write a poem about these beautiful bright flowers. Daffodils always seem to ‘spring’ to mind at this time of year and where there were…

Hold onto your hats ladies and gents, you're in for the long haul this week. With the weather being super dooper sunny and bright this week I, and several others, had our cameras to hand as we were out and about so prepare for a visual feast. Fortunately there are other contributors to this weeks images so worry not, there is a good deal of quality to match the quantity :)

Following on from our record count of Whooper…

While out on the reserve today I was treated to the most beautiful soaring song of a skylark. On first hearing it my eyes looked to the sky to see if I could spot it hovering from a great height, only for me to find out it was standing in the grass right next to me.

Male skylarks can be seen rising almost vertically from farmland, grassland, salt marshes and moorland and effortlessly hovering and singing. The long complicated…