Good morning. Apologies for the slight delay in providing some recent sightings, I have had a busy week.
Fortunately, the reserve has also been busy with wildlife as well! Starting on Monday, a great white egret was on the washland along with three wigeons. A drake pintail was also present, which is the first record of this species on the reserve for over a year.
Suzanne was lucky enough to see a red kite over the Washland viewpoint on Tuesday. Presumably the same bird was seen over nearby Hockwold village shortly after.
I decided to walk down to Joist Fen viewpoint from Lakenheath village on Tuesday (which is around an 11 mile round trip) I saw a green woodpecker in Botany Bay, at the far end of the reserve. There were also a lot of wild swans feeding north of the river. These were mainly Bewick’s swans (around 200 in total) with a few whooper swans mixed in for good measure.
It was a bit of a mixed day weather wise on Thursday. Before it started snowing, volunteer Phil tool this picture of Joist Fen bathed in sunlight:
Image credit: Phil Hammond
Thank you very much to Phil for sharing this image with us.
Dave, Suzanne and volunteer Darren went down to Joist Fen viewpoint late in the afternoon to look out for roosting birds of prey. They saw at least 15 marsh harriers and two barn owls.
Once the freezing fog lifted yesterday morning, a common buzzard was circling over the visitor centre.
A birdwatching group came in during the afternoon and spent a very productive hour up at the Washland viewpoint. They saw a great white egret along with three redshanks. There were also two yellow legged gulls present and two corn buntings flew over. Their icing on the cake was provided by views of up to five barn owls, which is a great count for here.
There was a slight dusting of snow on the ground this morning and I went out with my camera:
Image credits: David White
A great white egret was present right in front of the Washland viewpoint and a little grebe was on the river. There were several bearded tits showing well on the riverbank in Brandon Fen. I also spooked a muntjac deer near the visitor centre which was nice to see.
If you are planning to visit this coming week, please read this blog post about access to the reserve. We hope to see you soon!