There was good and bad news on Sunday here. The good news was that bearded tits were showing incredibly well early in the morning:
Image credits: Tim James
The bad news was that by the time the organised "bearded tit bonanza" walk got down the reserve, they were not showing very well at all. Unfortunately, they only heard bearded tits. The moral of the story for me is to organise for the walk to start at 8am rather than 10am next year!
There was much excitement on Wednesday when several of the RSPB's ecologists visited to look for invertebrates in Botany Bay, at the west end of the reserve. They found several Desmoulin's whorl snails. If you are not familiar with this species, they are a UK Biodiversity Plan species and they are quite scarce in Britain. Please click on the link above for more information about them. They bought us one back to show us and had it not been so tiny (it was less than five milimetres long!), I would have taken a photo of it. Although they were found on a part of the reserve that isn't open to the public, they may well be more widespread so if you know what you are looking for, you may well find some!
In other reserve news, there have been several sightings of an otter feeding in the Washland pool in the evenings this week. Two cranes were seen from Joist Fen viewpoint on Tuesday and a green sandpiper was seen over the viewpoint on the same day.
The weather deteriorated rapidly yesterday and we had strong north-westerly winds and rain for most of the day. I took a walk down to Joist Fen viewpoint before work and the conditions were really rather unpleasant! It was worth it though, as redwings were just pouring in from the north. All in all, I counted at least 250 individuals in 45 minutes. This included a flock of 70 that swirled around and landed in West Wood for some shelter.
Although its a lot calmer this morning, there were still several redwings in Brandon Fen and two lesser redpolls flew over the visitor centre. Dave also spotted our first "wild swans" of the winter this morning. Four whooper swans flew south over the visitor centre before swinging back round towards the washland pool. Two roe deer were also bounding about in Brandon Fen
Last but not least, Ali, our Assistant Warden and regular Wednesday blogger is getting married tomorrow. I am sure that those of you who read her blogs regularly will join us in wishing her and her partner Martin well for the future. We hope to see you soon!