Good afternoon. Once again, I must apologise for the lack of updates recently, I have not been in the office much. I will begin with an update from Wednesday. After much deliberation and head scratching, the mystery damselfly from last Saturday has been identified, it was in fact an aberrant female emerald damselfly. This species has been recorded on the reserve before but not since 2010, so it this was still a great record.
There has been plenty to see recently and here are some great pictures from local photographer Matt Walton:
A hunting barn owl:
A juvenile marsh harrier:
An azure damselfly:
A female black tailed skimmer:
A male banded demoiselle:
Image credits: Matt Walton
Thank you very much to Matt for sending these over.
There has been plenty to see over the last couple of days and a first summer osprey was seen south of the railway line on Wednesday. A female sparrowhawk was also perched on the edge of the pond bed in front of the visitor centre on the same day.
A stoat was seen near Joist Fen viewpoint on Thursday and a garden warbler was singing along the entrance track.
There was plenty to see yesterday and the visitor centre was clearly the place to be as Ali saw a barn owl in front of the centre and a kingfisher behind the centre. Two cranes were seen from Joist Fen viewpoint and there were lots of emperor moth caterpillars to see around Brandon Fen.
I returned this morning and lead a guided walk for Norwich RSPB local group. A kingfisher was perched up in front of New Fen viewpoint and two juvenile bearded tits popped up right in front of us which was lovely to see. A hobby also whizzed past with an unfortunate swift in its talons.
We popped into Mere Hide and there was a little grebe showing well in front of it. There were also lots of rudd feeding close to the surface of the water. There was a real dragonfly feeding frenzy over the pool with large numbers of four-spotted chasers and emperor dragonflies on the hunt for a meal.
A bittern flew past shortly after we reached Joist Fen viewpoint and a Cetti's warbler was skulking in front of the viewpoint. My personal highlight of the walk came when we walked back along the riverbank. There were butterflies everywhere! This included loads of small tortoiseshells, good numbers of commas and some freshly emerged red admirals. There were also plenty of five spot burnet moths to see which was nice.
The weather forecast for the next few days is looking reasonable so why not come and visit? We hope to see you soon!