It was such a still day at Hodbarrow today sound was carrying all around the estuary. The teal whistling sounded brilliant and lovely with the sunset. We have been doing a few improvements to the hide here at Hodbarrow so I'm sorry if this has inconvenienced any visits. I put the last coat of varnish onto the shelves today and barring a couple of other things to do we should be finished soon. We also managed to get up a couple of new information boards around the reserve which will hopefully help to give visitors a little bit more info on the history and nature they can find.
Ray and Steven put up one of the new information boards and Andy finishes sanding and painting the new shelves in the hide
What can be found at Hodbarrow at the moment include a few different kinds of Wildfowl. There is a great variety on the reserve at the moment with teal, goldeneye, red breasted mergansers, pochard, gadwall, tufted duck, wigeon and the solitary eider which can be often seen. The teal are really starting to build up and I counted 200+ from the hide. They all seemed to be in great fettle moving around the lagoon. I had a look for the green winged teal to no avail unfortunately. There were more dropping in as the tide increased and some were obscured so it's possible it could still be here. Waders include a good showing of turnstones (10+) many snipe in the rough grass on the island aswell as the usual redshanks lapwing and oystercatchers.
Anyway as usual any sightings please let me know
Cheers
Mhairi