Good morning. I will focus mostly on sightings from yesterday, purely because there was so much to see! I went for a walk before work and in descending numerical order, I saw four little egrets, three water pipits, two Egyptian geese and one great white egret.
The great white egret was feeding gracefully on the washland and by the end of the day, there may have been as many as three present on the reserve. Two seen together at one stage, although it is impossible to tell whether these two images depict two different birds:
Whilst on the subject of photos, here are a few more from yesterday:
A female kestrel:
Two mute swans:
A robin:
Image credits: Matt Walton
Thank you very much to Matt for sharing these great pictures with us.
As the day went on, a water rail was skulking around at the edge of the visitor centre pond and a treecreeper was singing behind the visitor centre. I popped up to the washland viewpoint at lunchtime to count gulls and the highlights included one adult yellow legged gull, three herring gulls and 67 lesser black backed gulls.
Volunteer Mark spent most of the day down the reserve and he saw a grey wagtail and two stonechats from Mere Hide. At least one bearded tit was also showing from the hide. He saw a bittern from Joist Fen viewpoint along with six marsh harriers and a cheeky weasel.
Meanwhile, as the day drew to a close, a barn owl was hunting over Brandon Fen and and a shelduck flew over the Washland viewpoint. There were also two short eared owls feeding on the Norfolk side of the river at around 3.30pm. These may be visible from the riverbank so it is definitely worth looking out for them!
I got here bright and early this morning in the dense fog (which hasn't lifted yet by the way!) I went for a walk around Brandon Fen and saw a barn owl hunting at close quarters. A corn bunting was singing nearby which is fairly unusual for here and a roe deer was browsing in the grazing marsh. Sadly, I couldn't see the large washland pool but I could hear several water pipits calling so there was at least some life out there somewhere!
The weather forecast for the next couple of days isn't looking too bad so why not come and visit? We hope to see you soon!