Good afternoon. It was a lovely day on Monday and a common darter dragonfly was on the wing in the sunshine.
There was an unprecedented count of 460 whooper swans on the washland first thing on Tuesday morning. We have certainly never had this many roosting overnight in that area so it was a great record. A single black tailed godwit was also present. Presumably, it was slightly intimidated by being surrounded by that many whooper swans!
Warden Alan counted the whooper swans on the washland yesterday morning and he "only" got up to 230! He also saw a great white egret feeding to the right of the Washland viewpoint. Later on in the day, volunteers Roger and Roy spotted a male blackcap behind the visitor centre which is a good record for here.
I went out for a walk armed with my camera this morning and took these photos which I hope you like:
Guelder rose berries:
Shaggy ink caps:
I had a quick look up at the Washland viewpoint and saw around 120 whooper swans. This included eight cygnets, three of which were part of a family of five. A redshank was calling and a great white egret was feeding just to the right of the viewpoint.
As the morning went on, a small group of lesser redpolls were feeding in the alders behind the visitor centre. A male siskin also spent some time on one of the bird feeders.
Local birder Steve spent some time on the reserve and he saw a Chinese water deer at the western edge of New Fen North, the first area of reedbed. He also saw a good number of insects for the time of year, with at least 18 common darter dragonflies and two red admiral butterflies alongside West Wood.
The reserve team have been burning cut vegetation out on the reserve today so I took this photo of the visitor centre pond with some smoke in the background at lunchtime:
Image credits: David White
Small numbers of bearded tits were showing well near Joist Fen viewpoint early afternoon and Suzanne saw three stonechats near the Washland viewpoint.
If you are planning to visit the reserve, please note that there are cattle grazing on the riverbank Public Footpath between the Washland viewpoint.
We hope to see you soon!