Good morning. I wasn’t intending to do another recent sightings blog post today but as yesterday turned out to be such a great day, I couldn’t resist.
There were several regular visitors around early yesterday morning and Matt Walton took these fantastic photographs:
Sunrise over the river:
Little grebe:
A pair of common darters:
Kingfisher:
Image credits: Matt Walton
Thank you very much to Matt for sharing these great pictures with us.
Simon Evans, our local bird ringer, was also ringing in Brandon Fen yesterday morning. A cheeky barn owl landed on one his net poles and a couple of waders flew over. This included three common snipe and two green sandpipers.
Meanwhile, further down the reserve, a bittern was seen from New Fen viewpoint and a kingfisher was seen from Mere Hide. Roy, our regular Saturday volunteer saw a common buzzard and a probable great white egret from Joist Fen viewpoint.
I went for a walk around Brandon Fen this morning and I spooked a female sparrowhawk. A common snipe flew over and there were several insect species on the wing. This included a small tortoisehell and a very tatty meadow brown. There were plenty of black tailed skimmers on the wing and a migrant hawker landed on the path in front of me.
I decided to spend some time at the Washland viewpoint and I am very glad that I did. A pair of stock doves flew over closely followed by a single turtle dove which was really nice to see. A kingfisher was hovering just east of the viewpoint and a grey heron was standing sentinel near the viewpoint.
I heard a greenshank calling in the distance and eventually I heard it directly overhead. It must have been very high as I didn’t see it. However, it was closely followed by at least one more as it eventually did a loop low over the large washland pool. It was another reserve year tick for me, so it was great to see it. A curlew called in the distance although I didn’t see it.
There were also a couple of summer migrants in the bushes below the Washland viewpoint. This included a singing willow warbler, a common whitethroat in sub song along with rather showy chiffchaff. As I walked back to the visitor centre, a large white was on the wing along with a gatekeeper.
When I opened up the visitor centre, a kingfisher shot across the visitor centre pond and there were two juvenile siskins on the visitor centre feeders. A red underwing also landed on the visitor centre door, showing its warning colours as it went.
There is plenty to see at the moment so why not come and visit? We hope to see you soon!