I had a pleasant surprise on Sunday morning when I opened the visitor centre shutters: I found one of these beauties hanging on the window:
Image credit: Tim James
Its a four spot-orbweaver. As the link says, this species holds the record as being the heaviest British spider. As you can see, they are almost all abdomen! Incidentally, another fascinating fact about this species is that adult females can actually change colour. How cool is that?!
There was also another record breaker around on Sunday in the form of the fastest of them all, the peregrine. Here is a photo of the bird that wintered here back in 2009:
Image credit: Lee Gregory
The individual on Sunday was seen over Joist Fen viewpoint. There were also good numbers of harriers around. This included at least 11 marsh harriers and one male hen harrier that sneaked into roost just before darkness fell.
Our local bird ringer Simon popped in on Monday and flushed a woodcock out of Brandon Fen. On Tuesday, there were at least six marsh harriers hunting in front of Joist Fen viewpoint and the peregrine was seen over West Wood (the furthest poplar plantation.)
I returned to work after a very pleasant couple of days off this morning and as I drove in, I met a visitor who had seen a barn owl hunting over Brandon Fen. I went for a walk and had a great view of a male stonechat hovering over the riverbank Public Footpath. A marsh tit was calling alongside the new trail and there were a few bits of bobs on the washland: There were nine gadwalls, seven teals and two little egrets to be precise! As I walked back to the visitor centre, three jays flew off into East Wood.
If you are planning to visit this weekend, please note that the barn owl walk on Sunday afternoon is FULLY BOOKED. I am just putting the finishing touches on the events programme for 2014 so please keep your eye on our events page for details of similar events next year. We hope to see you soon!