Good morning! After Friday's blog post that focused mainly on invertebrates, I promised to focus more on bird sightings today. Well, here we go:
While I was writing Friday's blog post, I kept being distracted by a great spotted woodpecker that was feeding it's recently fledged chick by the visitor centre feeder. A common snipe flew over the visitor centre which is quite unusual for this time of year and a female kestrel was hovering overhead.
Meanwhile, further down the reserve, at least four cranes were seen near Joist Fen viewpoint. One was seen in flight from the viewpoint itself and three were feeding in fields north of the river. A bittern was booming in front of the viewpoint and a barn owl was also seen nearby. Later on in the day, a second summer Mediterranean gull was circling over East Wood and the washland with a group of black headed gulls.
There was a mass hatching of banded demoiselles along the riverbank on Friday and at least 100 were counted in a small patch of yellow iris. There were also lots of emperor moth caterpillars around. Here is a photo of one from volunteer Richard O'Brien:
Image credit: Richard O'Brien
There was an unusual record for this time of year yesterday morning when a male hen harrier was seen from Joist Fen viewpoint. Matt Walton was out and about early and got some lovely pictures.
A cuckoo looking for directions:
A common blue damselfly having a rest:
Image credit: Matt Walton
Several hobbys were seen later on in the day once the sun came out and a bittern was seen from New Fen viewpoint.
I went for a walk this morning and saw a male marsh harrier over the washland and a cuckoo flying from East Wood north of the river. There were two common terns fishing along the river and a pair of mute swans with five cygnets were feeding in the second washland pool.
I stopped briefly at New Fen viewpoint and heard bearded tits calling in front of the viewpoint and a kingfisher calling behind. There were two cuckoos calling in West Wood including one that sounded like it had a bad case of the hiccups!
There were also lots of damselflies on the wing. Azure damselflies and blue tailed damselflies were particularly conspicuous. There were also several freshly emerged meadow browns which were nice to see.
The weather forecast for this week isn't looking too bad so why not come and visit? We hope to see you soon!