Good afternoon, as Katherine blogged some recent sightings yesterday, I will try to put a slightly different spin on today’s post.
I will start off with some interesting news that we received this morning: As some of you may now, each year, we fit small numbers of our young marsh harriers with green wing tags to give us a better idea of their movements once they fledge here. This is done in partnership with the Hawk and Owl Trust.
In the past, birds that have fledged here have been seen as far away as the Coto Donana National Park in Spain and WWT Martin Mere in Lancashire. However, our latest recovery has trumped both of these interesting records: “LS”, a first summer male that was tagged here last year was photographed in Norway the other day! This is the first ever British tagged marsh harrier to be seen anywhere in Scandinavia. It is fascinating to find out how far they go and we are all scratching our heads as to why it went that far when it left here!
In other reserve news, one of the Hereford cattle on the riverbank Public Footpath has calved in the last couple of days. Therefore, if you walk along the riverbank, please give mother and calf plenty of space, especially if you have a dog with you.
It was really rather breezy for my walk this morning but I managed to take these pictures of the yellow iris that is currently in flower on the riverbank:
I walked along the riverbank and found a drake garganey feeding on the pool north of East Wood. As I walked down to New Fen viewpoint, I could hear a cuckoo calling in East Wood. I saw several more cuckoos between East Wood and West Wood. As I walked alongside West Wood, I could hear a turtle dove purring in the wood which was lovely to hear.
A bittern flew past me near the track to Mere Hide and there were several azure damselflies resting in the vegetation. There were also several caterpillars lurking nearby, including a couple of drinker moth caterpillars and a garden tiger moth caterpillar.
As the day has gone on, two cranes were seen in Humphrey’s Paddock, the grazing marsh in front of Joist Fen viewpoint. One flew into the area behind Mere Hide before flying back again. Several individual bitterns were seen from the viewpoint and a drake garganey was seen from New Fen viewpoint.
I will leave you with a species to look out for here if you come and visit over the next couple of weeks. It’s a female scarce chaser. Although I didn’t take this picture here, hopefully I will get a picture of one here soon!:
Image credits: David White
There is plenty to see at the moment so why not come and visit? We hope to see you soon!