Good morning. I will begin with some photographs that I took on Sunday morning.
Common stretch-spider:
Drinker moth caterpillar:
Furrow orb spider:
Cercopis vulnerata:
I will start off where I left off on Sunday. A lucky visitor saw four bitterns flying together from Joist Fen viewpoint. There were also three garganeys on the washland, two drakes and a duck.
There were also plenty of invertebrates on the wing. This included several freshly emerged scarce chasers alongside Trial Wood and several broad bodied chasers near New Fen viewpoint.
As the day went on, a common buzzard was hunting over the car park. A scarce species of fly, thought to be conops vesicularis, was seen in the vegetation near the Washland viewpoint.
A young song thrush was on the entrance track on Monday morning and a marsh harrier flew over the visitor centre pond. I came down for a walk in the evening and saw a bittern over New Fen North, the first area of reedbed. A mistle thrush also flew into the same area.
On Tuesday, a turtle dove was seen near Wilton Bridge, which is where the riverbank Public Footpath meets the main road. A lucky visitor saw seven bitterns display flying together from Joist Fen viewpoint and there were also at least 12 hobbys feeding overhead.
Suzanne and I did our Common Bird Census (CBC) around Brandon Fen this morning. We disturbed a roe deer and saw a female barn owl hunting over the grazing marsh. A common buzzard was circling over the car park and at least two cuckoos kept flying around.
There were plenty of signs of breeding activity. We saw a Cetti’s warbler carrying food near the Washland viewpoint and a kingfisher whizzing across the grazing marsh with a fish.
Meanwhile, further down the reserve, a female garganey was seen from New Fen viewpoint along with a bittern. There were also good numbers of swifts feeding aerobatically over the reserve.
As I haven’t been here much this week, I have unfortunately missed most of the excitement of dragonflies and damselflies emerging from the pond raised bed outside the visitor centre. However, I got lucky this morning and took this photo of an emperor dragonfly about to emerge:
Image credits: David White
If you have been following our blog posts regularly, you will know that the great tits in our visitor centre have chicks. They now have five chicks which should hopefully fledge on around 5 June. Why not come and watch their comings and goings from the comfort of our visitor centre?
There is plenty to see at the moment so why not come and visit? We hope to see you soon!
Thanks John. I will amend that!