Good morning! Its been one of those weeks when things have either been turning up in odd places or behaving a bit oddly. Take Sunday for example, this barn owl spent most of the day perched up in full view in Trial Wood, the middle poplar wood:
Image credit: Ron Smith
There was also a bittern "throwing some shapes" at the edge of the pool in front of Joist Fen viewpoint:
I think this officially qualifies as the longest bittern I have ever seen a photo of!
There was an exceptional amount of snipes around on Tuesday and all in all, reserve staff counted 83 common snipes and one solitary jack snipe in Botany Bay, at the west end of the reserve. There was also plenty of crane activity and at least three individual birds were seen over the west end of the reserve over the course of the day.
I made a quick dash up to the Washland viewpoint on Wednesday morning before heading off to our regional office for a day. Much to my surprise, one of our resident crane pairs appeared from the west, flew straight over the large washland pool and landed in the vegetation directly east of the viewpoint. How lucky was that?! It certainly put a spring in my step and got me in a mood for a day full of meetings!
I got into work extra early yesterday morning so that I could go for a slightly longer walk than usual. I saw a little grebe on the river right in front of the Washland viewpoint and five little egrets took off from the second washland pool. I had a fleeting glimpse of three bearded tits near New Fen viewpoint and a chiffchaff was singing in East Wood.
I got down to the start of the boardwalk down to Mere Hide and a male stonechat was perched up on a nearby post. It was almost like it was on sentry duty! I had a pleasant surprise just before I got back to the visitor centre when two grey partridges flew out of the closest Fen pool to the visitor centre and headed off south of the railway line.
It was really rather windy yesterday but the wind brought several sand martins with it and they were seen in various places on the reserve over the course of the day. I saw two species of mammals just before closing time: Firstly, a weasel ran along the veranda behind the visitor centre and secondly, two roe deers were skulking in the vegetation at the edge of the entrance track as I left.
We hope to see you soon!